DEMON'S VIRTUE

Eiro looked forward at the earth spirit, curiously staring down ever part of its body. With a grin on his face, the Demon crossed his arms, "Is that so? Then will you tell me your name?" He asked, before the Golem immediately nodded his head.

"Of course. My name is Gondos Holmstir." The Golem explained.

"Gondos, I see. Then it's nice to formally be introduced to you." Eiro smiled, and Nelli slowly floated toward Gondos and looked at him curiously, "Not bad, not bad..." She muttered quietly, and Gondos simply turned his head to look at the Naiad.

"Thank you. I can only say 'likewise'." Gondos told her, before quickly turning back toward the Demon in front of him, "But that doesn't matter for now. Eiro, I promised you that I would form a contract on equal terms with you after I matured, and this is a promise that I would like to follow up on. Soon, preferably, it doesn't seem like I will be able to stay like this much longer without a source of mana." The Golem explained, and in response, Eiro simply nodded his head.

"Got it. Then let's do this right here, I suggest." With a quick smile, Gondos floated up to Eiro and placed his hand onto the center of his chest. Eiro remembered the way that his first contract with Nelli went, so they managed to get through this one pretty quickly since it was mostly the same. There were a few differences, for example when it came to the specifics of what the earth element entails, and what one would 'pledge' to in connection to that. But for the most part, Eiro could just make use of what he remembered and what he was then told from Nelli about the contracts in general to speed this whole thing up.

Of course, during the whole process, Eiro and the Golem gave mana to each other, just like in the other contract with Nelli. And then, a little while later, a notification appeared in front of Eiro.

[You have formed a Contract with the Golem, Gondos Holmstir]

Eiro smiled and ran his fingers through this notification before slowly turning around toward the Goblins who were still bowing to the Demon ever since he first commanded them to. Thinking that this was a good enough chance to finally get this stuff over with, Eiro simply sat down on the rock slab for a while and leaned forward, staring directly at the former lord of this village.

"Gobo. Stand up." Eiro commanded, once more making his voice carry further using wind magic, and the Hobgoblin immediately raised its head and stared at the Demon. It slowly stood up on its two feet and stared at Eiro with a bit of nervosity.

"Come." The Demon commanded next, and Gobo slowly followed the command, albeit with some hesitation. He stood in front of Eiro, who just pointed at the ground, "Kneel." He told Gobo.

Now that Eiro was looking down onto Gobo again, the Demon simply started to speak to the Hobgoblin, "Why do you mine Magic Stones here?" Eiro asked him, and Gobo quickly raised his head to reply.

"...Shiny stones strong. Gobo not want slave. Gobo want strong. Gobo use shiny stones to strong." With a light frown, Eiro looked at the Hobgoblin in thought.

If he thought that magic stones were a symbol of strength, then that meant he was probably tamed by a mage sometime before. And that wasn't so uncommon either, for mages to tame humanoid monsters. After all, like that they had an assistant that they could treat however they wanted and that could take care of tasks nobody else would want to do. On top of that, since Goblins have a natural resistance against different poisons, especially they may be used for testing things like potions or other concoctions.

"Hm. Then keep mining them for now, Gobo." Eiro commanded him, although it seemed like the Hobgoblin was pretty surprised. He probably thought that he'd be killed now, and couldn't continue what he wanted to do, so this came as something quite pleasant.

And then, all of a sudden, Eiro moved his hand to the side and slowly took out a couple more magic stones that appeared out of thin air and handed them to Gobo. "Take these as a small 'reward' for now. You will get more of them when I return and I see that you did a good job."

"More? More shiny stones?" The Hobgoblin asked, and Eiro simply nodded his head. "Yes, more shiny stones. These are different from the ones that you find here, right?" Eiro pointed out, and then held the magic stones up to the necklace around Gobo's neck. Immediately, the Hobgoblin nodded its head excitedly.

"Then I hope you're going to do your job. Make sure that you don't disappoint me, Gobo." The Demon commanded, slowly pushing himself off of the slab of rock again.

He walked past Gobo and just so slightly glared at the Hobgoblin in passing, "I'm sure you know what's going to happen if you do disappoint me, right?" Eiro announced to the Hobgoblin. It seemed like this guy didn't somehow manage to break out of his situation, but instead was either abandoned or his original owner simply died.

Gobo may have a scratch that split the taming-tattoo in half, but Gobo was listening to him so well that he doubted he had any major willpower. He was just a fair amount stronger, and seemingly more intelligent than the other goblins and hobgoblins here.

And then, after stepping past the other inhabitants of this village freshly dominated by Eiro, the Demon made his way over toward the single cave system that led back away from this place. It seemed like some goblins were trying to follow him, and actually managed to do so pretty skillfully, but with Eiro's high-level stealth skill it was impossible for them to actually keep watching him for too long if he wanted to directly hide from them.

Not to mention that Eiro was far, far quicker on his feet as well. Once Eiro squeezed himself through the rather thin gap that made up the exit of this cave system, the Demon climbed down this place and soon found himself on the road that he was traveling on before.

It was just a five minute walk away from the place the kids were, so Eiro chose to simply walk a bit and leave the kids for themselves a bit. He could still perceive them perfectly like this, but they could act as if Eiro simply wasn't there a little while longer.

And then, Eiro slowly turned his head and looked at the notifications that appeared in front of him a couple minutes ago as he was leaving the village.

[You are now the owner of the Mountain Goblin Village]

[Leadership Skill leveled up!]

[Leadership Skill leveled up!]

[Leadership Skill leveled up!]

"Hm, neat." Eiro smiled lightly before moving his fingers through the notifications to make them disappear "So, why exactly did you do that?" Gondos asked curiously, just watching the blue mist disappear into nothingness.

The Demon raised his brows and lightly turned his eyes to the side to look at the Golem, "You were there when I told Nelli, right? It's for the Magic Stones. They're hard to actually buy, so I want to have a good source of them."

"Even if that may be the case," Gondos started, "in any way, it's not exactly true for you, is it? I don't understand much about it, but a King must be one of the people that can actually get Magic Stones, right?"

"Oh yeah, definitely." Nelli agreed, "And especially, I think there's only one major kind of magic stones there. Earth. You just made a contract with an earth spirit, which is a thousand times better than any kind of magic stone out there, even if it can help you practice magic."

With a slight sigh, Eiro nodded his head, even if he looked at Nelli a little disappointedly, "I thought at least you would understand." Eiro pointed out, and then immediately started to explain. Or at least he tried to, although he was interrupted by a theory that Gondos just came up with.

"Ah, so you do simply enjoy the act of dominating those weaker than you? If that's so, then-"

"No." The demon interrupted immediately, "Just because I sometimes enjoy killing others, doesn't mean that I..." Eiro started, but then slowly turned his head away, "...nevermind, it was actually kind of liberating, confusingly."

Eiro quickly shook his head so that he could get his thoughts on track again, "But that's not it. Nelli, do you remember back then, when we tested everyone's affinities at home the first time?" The Demon asked, and Nelli just nodded her head.

"Yup, what about it? What does that have to do with this?"

"Everything, maybe? It wasn't much, sure, but I did have a slight affinity for the shadow element. I'm pretty sure I wasn't created with that affinity somehow, otherwise it would probably be more potent, but I grew that affinity myself. It's like how I grew my fire affinity in the boiling water."

"Oh wait, so those shadow magic stones you sometimes use actually increase your shadow affinity?" Nelli asked, and Eiro simply nodded his head, "That's my guess, at least. And so, it seems like a pretty good idea to try and get my affinity up in another element with the help of those magic stones back there. Or rather, to let me awaken an advanced affinity." Eiro explained, before Nelli slowly opened her eyes.

"Oh! Right! Nature Magic Stones!"

Immediately, Eiro nodded his head in response to the spirit's realization, "That's exactly it."

However, it seemed like Eiro's second contracted spirit was a little bit confused at hearing all this, and quickly turned to the Demon, "So you're doing all this just because you think you maybe can get Nature magic?"

"Mhm. An important person to me had that element, and now that I have both a water and earth spirit, which are the two basis elements for the nature element, it should hopefully help. Since especially in places like this, where ambient natural mana is strong and dense, Nature Magic Stones are pretty likely to appear in magic stone mines. They're technically the most common type of magic stone because there's some in any magic stone mine, but they aren't sold anywhere, because some kind of idiotic forest kingdom has claimed monopoly over them. It's like the church, they somehow have the power to do that." Eiro sighed annoyedly, before scratching the back of his neck.

"I saw a couple of unrefined magic stones that smelled a little different to regular earth magic stones, and the smell reminded me of that important person, so I knew that there definitely were some of them here." The Demon kept explaining, "I hope that by the time we're back, I can get started on growing my nature element a bit."

"You've really thought this through, didn't you?" Nelli chuckled lightly, before Eiro just smugly shrugged, "What can I say, it's what I do. Oh, and by the way..." Eiro said, after remembering something important, "If either of you mention the fact that I have the torture skill, the two of you are going to become mud together, alright?"

With that threat, Eiro continued walking, while Gondos started slowing down while floating behind him. Nelli obviously noticed it was just a joke, but Gondos hadn't been with Eiro all that long yet. With a slight sigh, the Naiad floated up next to the Golem and pulled him after them, reassuring him that Eiro wasn't serious.

And while rolling his eyes, Eiro soon managed to spot the carriage again.. The demon approached the place with a light smile, and just waved at the group when he saw that they noticed him.