DEMON'S VIRTUE

"Wait, so the Gnome became a Golem now?" Arc asked curiously as he stood up to take a closer look at Gondos, before the Spirit immediately nodded its head and just so slightly bowed forward while floating in the air.

"Nice to meet you all. I am indeed the Gnome that had been accompanying you until now. My name is Gondos." The Golem explained, and Avalin excitedly jumped up and made his way over toward him, "Cool!" She exclaimed and tried to grasp at the Spirit, although Eiro quickly squatted down and picked the young girl up.

"Now, now, stop that. He's not a pet." Eiro told Avalin, and the young girl quickly nodded her head, "Alright~!" She exclaimed, before the Demon slowly made his way over back toward the carriage while looking at the others.

"Is everyone ready to leave again?" Eiro asked them, while the little girl on his arms just slung her arms around the Demon's neck and snuggled up to him. Everyone seemed to be somewhat ready to go for now, so Arc and Clementine quickly made their way over toward the Aria. But when the others tried heading into the carriage, Felix just looked at Eiro for a second and held his hands up in front of him slowly.

It seemed like he was trying to remember how to say a word in sign language, but when he managed to, Eiro just read it in his mind.

'What I did, huh?' He thought to himself, and Eiro lightly smiled back at him and started to explain, out loud so that the others could hear as well, of course.

"I just dominated a village of monsters to get a source of magic stones." The Demon explained to them, trying to go through with the hand-signs as slowly as possible so that Felix could properly understand. This was actually pretty hard to do, especially considering that he was still carrying Avalin at this point in time. But once Eiro finished speaking, the others immediately stared at him confusedly.

"You just did what?" Rudy asked confusedly, completely in disbelief, while Felix was trying to figure out if he somehow read the hand-signs wrong and was looking around at the others.

"Yeah, there's a small village of Mountain Goblins around here. There was very dense mana there that Gondos was interested in, and then I took interest in the magic stone mine in that place. So, I dethroned the Hobgoblin 'Lord' of that place and took over. Pretty smart fella for a goblin, actually. His name's Gobo."

With a slight laugh, Arc hooked one of the Aria up to the carriage, "You're joking, right?" He asked, but Eiro simply looked back with a light frown, "Of course not. I'm completely serious. The best part is that there's a pretty big town that's not even too far from here. And since we're in Skyhart right now, I can just head back here after we visit Solomon and that brat again." Eiro pointed out to them, and then looked at Felix with a light smile. He just quickly signed 'Tell you later', so that he could take his time explaining everything to him some other time.

"Isn't it pretty dangerous to try and lead a village of Goblins?" Sammy asked with a slight bit of concern, before Eiro slowly thought about it.

"Sure, but only if I let someone find out about it. If someone should spot me in that place ever, I'll just 'abort the mission' and kill the Goblins instead, and the problem's solved."

"I think she wasn't talking about your identity being found out..." Clementine pointed out, "But Goblins themselves are pretty dangerous, right?"

"Hm, they didn't seem that strong to me, to be honest." Eiro replied, "There were a lot of them, but otherwise... Goblins were the monsters I killed to rank up when I was just a Lesser Imp, so I don't think they should be that strong?"

"Eh... Fair enough..." Rudy muttered quietly, before Eiro simply smiled at them, "And even then, monsters like that are pretty easy to deal with. Once they become a little bit smarter, they'll stop being so feral and can be controlled more easily. As long as none of them somehow get unique evolutions, it should be fine."

That being said, Eiro did want to try and guide those goblins into uncommon or rare evolutions by giving them things that Goblins wouldn't usually get their hands on. Since some monsters could evolve depending on what kind of 'profession' they had, actually giving them things like pickaxes or something like that to help them mine the magic stones could produce Mining Goblins.

Or if there were some others that were useful for different things other than mining, then it might be worth investing in trying that kind of stuff out. Training some of them to be pretty strong combat-wise would also be a good idea, so that they could defend the village while Eiro was gone.

So he did also need a couple of weapons... Either way, Eiro figured that he could spend some of the rest of the trip trying to come up with ideas for such things, so for now, he simply helped get the carriage ready for the rest of today's trip.

Arc started driving the carriage forward and Eiro got on Lugo's back, just placing his mask back onto his face while following the carriage. The path was rather narrow at the moment, so Eiro couldn't ride in front of them the whole time.

But that time was quickly used by Eiro speaking to Gondos to ask him to try and refine some rock that Eiro scooped up from the road using earth magic. After all, 'refining' was nothing but a skill that only spirits could learn. And even if Gondos 'grew up' now and wasn't an immature spirit anymore, his skill level and grade was still pretty low. He had to practice some more to be able to go through with the kind of refination that Nelli could do.

After all, all that Gondos could do was practically 'pull out' certain things from a mass of earth, but soon, he should be able to change what the rock was like in itself. Eiro read somewhere that refined dirt was the perfect soil for planting things, so he really wanted to try that out sometime. The Demon really couldn't imagine what kinds of things he could grow.

Planting something in refined soil, and then watering it using refined water. Somehow, he was getting really excited about it. Maybe it was just him being excited about the idea of having a new place to stay long enough to even plant something properly. They couldn't go back to their home of over seven years anymore, after all.

With a slight sigh, the Demon started looking around the area, trying to make sure that no monsters or troublesome people were near them, and then took out a book from his treasury to start reading a bit.

And like that, the trip to pass this mountain-range continued.

---

Looking down at the map in his hands, Eiro could really barely believe it. Just now, he managed to spot the place that they were looking for. They were right in front of a giant mountain, and all they now had to do was ascend that mountain to get to the temple at the top.

But Eiro had been able to just barely spot some golden decorations placed around its walls. The Demon was really excited to see this. This meant that they could simply drive up this mountain and be done with it! Sammy and Leon would have their skills unsealed, and Eiro didn't have to worry about them being in such pain anymore!

At the foot of this mountain, right where the path to get up to the peak started, was a small village. It didn't really seem all that special to him, and the people were pretty quiet. Especially at the moment, really.

They were up north, so during this time where winter was approaching and the first snow was falling, everyone was raelly just preparing to properly get through this cold season.

Eiro lightly smiled and looked in front of himself as they entered through the village-gate and made their way to the far side to the 'gate' immediately.

But for some reason, the carriage simply slowed down, just before the Aria set foot onto the brick that started the 'road'.

"Huh? What's going on? Go!" Arc exclaimed, trying to somehow get the Aria to move, but they simply resisted Arc's commands completely, at least when it came to walking through the stone-brick archway in front of them.

Eiro slowly stepped down from Lugo's back and walked up to the archway and see what was going on. And right when he tried to, he felt shivers go down his spine. He turned around, and soon noticed what was going on with the Aria. They were simply scared. It was similar with Lugo, he was simply nervous about heading up this mountain.

But it was weird, Eiro didn't notice anything at all until he stepped up in front of the gate. However, the feeling was something rather familiar. It was a similar to when Eiro was still under control of the original Avalin, when they entered the floating town above the lake.

It seemed like there was a monster underneath that town that was strong enough that its mere existence scared monsters enough to stay away from it.

But this time it was different. There was literally nothing if Eiro stepped a couple meters away, but the moment he was within distance of a single step of the archway, he could feel the pressure that whatever being was in here gave off.

"Ah, yeah, I'm afraid you won't be able to bring that carriage up there with you." A man explained. He was wearing robes that Eiro only saw in an illustration before. They were the robes of a monk, and Eiro just slightly turned toward him when this man approached.

"Something is sealed here, right?" Eiro asked with a slight glare, and the monk raised his brows surprised, "That is indeed the case. Not many people know about this, however. May I ask why you are here?" The monk asked Eiro, and the Demon slowly turned toward the carriage.

"There is someone up there that is supposed to be able to help my children. But we really can't take the carriage?" The Demon asked, and the monk simply shook his head.

"I'm afraid not. That place is one that requires immense willpower to approach. The being that is sealed there is a dangerous one. Magic beasts in particular can sense such things easily, but it is hard for even some people to fully climb the mountain."

With a deep frown, Eiro turned over toward Nelli, but she simply shook her head. It seemed like even she didn't know about this. "Fine, then we're going on foot." The Demon announced and was just about to tell Arc to move the carriage to the side of the road until they found some stables to keep it, although the Monk quickly stopped him.

"I would suggest not leaving something as important as that carriage and those two magic beasts alone. Is there anyone you could leave it with instead?" The Monk asked, and Eiro just sighed. He was right, a carriage and magic beasts like this were worth enough to kill over for some people. This place seemed pretty safe, but it was still risky.

"Yeah... Arc, come on. We're bringing you guys to an Inn. Sammy, Leon and I are going up there alone." Eiro announced, and the Monk simply smiled after hearing that, "I see. I can show you to an Inn, if you wish. I was just about to head up the mountain again as well, so you three may accompany me.. I do not mind guiding you there."