DEMON'S VIRTUE

Eiro stared down in front of himself, at what was left over of <The World>. Two golden cards. One of them showed a golden, decorated key, while the other showed a circle with blue, green, brown and white parts, simply sitting there in an ocean of black.

<The Devil> appeared right next to Eiro and quickly picked up one of those two cards, the one with the key. "Now then, that was quite a pleasure to watch. Truly, I did not expect you to be forming a magic circle of all things." He chuckled, and Eiro just stared back at him.

"Now what?" He asked, and the Devil just kept smirking, "You can try to become the next world. But rest assured, just because you have the card and killed a royal monster doesn't mean that you can truly become a royal yourself. You are most likely too weak to become one right now, so don't take too much onto yourself." The Devil advised. And Eiro had to admit, he did feel something coming off of that Major Arcana card that made him feel reluctant to pick it up, but he wasn't sure if it was because it was a card of the major arcana in general, or because he was, as the devil said, too weak to make use of it.

"Well, nevermind that." The Devil said, and with a slight smirk looked past Eiro for a moment, "Let's just get started with this." He added as the Devil quickly quickly turned the card in his hand into a key that he then pressed into the center of Eiro's chest.

It opened up a hole while the Demon just stood there as if frozen, and the Devil pushed the three things he took from Eiro back inside there.

[Your fear was returned to you]

[Your empathy was returned to you]

[Your fatherly instincts were returned to you]

Eiro still just stood there as the Devil leaned forward and just took a look at what he could see, "But it's quite cluttered in here... you should do some spring-cleaning, don't you think? There's your cards over there just laying on the table, magic stones on the shelves, even some tools laying on the ground... And those books are nearly falling over, how annoying." The Devil pointed out as he waved his hand to the side and made the portal that he came here through appear once more as he pulled the key out of Eiro's chest, "Oh, not to mention that little extra... surprise in there. No wonder you're so different from the rest if you have that left over."

With these words, <The Devil> departed and the gate that he created disappeared as if rotting away. And Eiro was just left to stand there. The hole in his chest slowly closed, and even though he just had three important aspects of himself returned to him, he still felt empty somehow. As such, when the Demon regained the control over his body, he looked around himself and once more stared at the card that <The World> left behind.

Eiro tried extending his hand toward it, but when he did, something surged through Eiro's body and made him flinch the moment he thought 'maybe I shouldn't'. It seemed like Eiro still was somewhat affected by Sammy's 'Truth' even now. It was probably weakened, but throughout the whole time he had been fighting <The World>, his body felt lethargic, and his mind slow. At least when compared to normal.

But together with that surge of... whatever that was, something else crossed Eiro's mind. And that was the fact that if he actually tried to do this, he would die. There was definitely a reason why the Royals were the strongest of the strongest. And it wasn't because of the major arcana cards. It was because the base monster was strong.

For example, Eiro remembered the story that Armodeus told him about the current Monster King's father, the 'Goblin Lord' that then turned into <The Emperor> after getting the corresponding card. While regular Goblins may be an example for weakness, they were actually amongst the monsters with the greatest range of strength. They could be as weak as a frail child, or strong enough to bring a country to ruin, just like a Goblin Lord was. And that was without a card.

The only reason that Eiro was able to beat <The World> just now was because it was trapped inside of a seal for at least a hundred years, which weakened it considerably. Actually, the more Eiro thought about that fact, the more his body started to shiver and shake due to the fear that he was given back by <The Devil>.

But once more, this just showed that while Eiro was surely stronger than many... Many still didn't mean 'all'. This just showed him that even in situations where he just wanted to help them, the children might end up in danger. And this time, it was completely his fault.

Eiro wasn't sure if it was because he may have been affected by Leon's unique skills more than he thought, or if it was because of the miasma or the instinctual distrust of Hyjun because of what he looked like, but because of his stubbornness, Eiro nearly cost the children their life.

But that only showed Eiro more that he had to be careful with what he was doing. Despite the fact that he needed strength, he couldn't just do whatever he wanted in case it might benefit him. And then, something popped into Eiro's mind, that might be a good chance to make it up to the children.

So for now, Eiro slowly touched the Major arcana card of <The World>. He was sure that it wouldn't work differently to the other cards, and he had to actively activate it using mana. Otherwise, random monsters might be able to activate it, and that most likely wouldn't be a good thing.

And the moment his fingertips touched the cold golden surface, a notification appeared in front of him.

[Due to the lack of overall strength, full activation of the card is inadvisable]

[Instead of a true Royal, you are now a candidate for <The World>, and will gain a miniscule portion of its true abilities]

[<The World> Pairing Survivl Probability – 1%]

[<Minor Elemental Fusion> Ability Gained]

[Minor Elemental Fusion – Ability that enhances the fusion of elemental magic with your body]

Slightly startled, Eiro dropped the card again, scared that he just made an incredible mistake, but in the end, it seemed like it didn't change too much. It just gave him another ability... But still, at least now Eiro knew that he was right. He would probably die if he properly activated the card.

Slowly, he touched it again and quickly placed it into his treasury as he stopped squatting. But it was a bit weird, the 'Minor Elemental Fusion' ability sounded just like what Eiro could already do... When he coursed the magic from a magic stone through his body and it slightly changed his body around. Maybe it was different after all..?

"Nevermind that, first... Nelli, Gondos, you can stop. I beat <The World>. Don't bring Leon outside the last barrier yet, maybe it can hold off some of his skill's effect as well if we're lucky. We need to wait until he's awake." Eiro tried to convey to his two contracted spirits as he stared down the edge of the mountain, soon spotting the group who had already made it halfway down the side of it.

The two spirits looked up toward where Eiro was and quickly gave him a sign that the understood, before Gondos seemingly tried to create a flat surface for them to safely rest.

"I'll be there soon, I just have to take care of something else as well." The Demon explained, and slowly turned toward the broken-down gate leading into the ruined courtyard. The temple itself was still seemingly mostly standing, and from inside there, Eiro could sense a lot of stuff going on. As <The World> was leaving, it seemed to have somehow unsealed some of the seals placed on the monsters that were supposed to suppress their 'Monstrosity', as Hyjun called it before.

And whether it was because of Leon's unique skills or just because it was the nature of monsters, the number of living beings inside of the temple had been cut down to a tenth of what it was before Eiro got here today.

The Demon jumped over the cracks in the ground and made his way into the temple, trying not to step into the blood or pieces of flesh that were just laying all over the place. Eiro could see some monsters right at the end of the hallway feeding on one other monster together, and the Demon just stepped through the crowd of monsters that didn't even seem to want to pay any attention to him.

Eiro made his way back into the room where he had met Hyjun, and just saw its body laying there on the ground. Parts of it had been crushed or ripped apart, and it seemed like close to all of its blood was missing.

The Demon stepped up to the corpse with his heart starting to beat faster and faster every time one of his feet hit the ground.

He still couldn't look at it without feeling absolute anger and disgust, but there was still something Eiro had to do. The Demon put his weapons away and slowly grabbed the figure by its hips, and chose to carry it outside into the hallway.

Eiro was the one that caused its death, despite it being one of Jura's trusted friends. The least he could do to show remorse was give it a proper burial, or at least that's what Eiro thought might be the right thing to do. It's what Jura wanted to happen to him, so he figured it was a good thing to happen.

The Demon brought Hyjun out into the courtyard and using earth magic quickly excavated a hole that Eiro let Hyjun down into, before covering his body with dirt and rock again.

"Sorry." Eiro muttered quietly, and then turned around to get something else done in the temple. He wanted to get the thing that seemed to have the only seal that hadn't been completely destroyed.

In one of the rooms, Eiro soon spotted one of those figures that had their bodies covered in cloth that took the slime core and its frozen body with them before trying to chew up and eat the frozen slime. This time, it seemed to have tried paying attention to Eiro, although it quickly turned away again when it saw the black blood on Eiro's hands that came from handling Hyjun's body just now.

But Eiro didn't care.. He just went up to the small glass bottle that was leftover from the concoctions that Leon had been drinking to keep the seal from breaking his body apart, and was now housing the slime's core, and with it in his hand, Eiro left the temple again and started his descent of the mountain.