DEMON'S VIRTUE

"What happened out here?!" Eiro heard the Slime-Core asking him, and the Demon just grumbled slightly. If it wasn't useful to him, Eiro would have killed it already because of how annoying it was alone.

"I accidentally released the monster that you've been sealing here for the past 100 years. But don't worry, I killed it already." The Demon explained, and for a while, the monster in the bottle just stayed quiet for a while, until it finally replied again, "...What..?" It asked, and Eiro just ignored the slime core for now. The Demon just placed the bottle into his satchel so that he wouldn't lose it and then started cloaking his body in Air Magic and jumped down the side of the path. As his body descended, Eiro aimed for a rock that was sticking out the side of the mountain to land on. The moment he did, Eiro used earth magic to make it split off of the rock-wall it was hanging off of and then tried to control it so that he was able to basically just use it as a way to safely glide down the side of the mountain for now.

It took a little while, but soon, Eiro managed to get to the spot where Nelli and Gondos were already awaiting him, protecting Leon and Sammy from any monsters that were going crazy through Leon's unique skills, although none of them actually dared get close to them.

"You actually beat it? You killed a Royal?" Nelli asked confusedly, and Eiro slowly nodded his head, "Yeah, I did. It was weakened, and... I'll just explain it to you later." Eiro started, while his body just grew more and more lethargic around here. His heart was beating quickly, and the Demon just felt uncomfortable here.

"Sammy, you're up, right?" Eiro asked after a while, wanting to at least get rid of one of the aspects making him feel so uncomfortable. The young girl slowly raised her head in response. It seemed like she was feeling quite exhausted as well, and looked at Eiro.

"Hmm..? What happened..?" She asked quietly, and the Demon squatted down in front of her with a light smile on his face, "We managed to get your skill unsealed. But you accidentally used it on me... Do you know how to dispel the effect?" Eiro replied, and Sammy seemingly didn't have to think too long.

"Mhm..." She replied, "...Sorry... I lied..." Sammy muttered with her eyes closed, nearly dozing off, and all of a sudden all the lethargy that Eiro had felt throughout his body was just gone near to instantly, "So you just need to admit to lying, huh..?" Eiro asked quietly, and smiled as he placed his hand onto the girl's head for a moment as she fell asleep again.

Now that Eiro was at least able to move properly again, Eiro stepped over to the side and looked at Nelli and Gondos, "Alright, for now, we're staying in here until they're both awake again. One of you go see the kids at the Inn and tell them to come over here. The Miasma is mostly gone, so it should be fine for the Aria to enter."

"Speaking of..." Gondos started, "Wasn't it pretty weird that there were monsters underground despite all that miasma that even affected you, Eiro?"

After a bit of thought, the Demon slowly nodded his head, "Yeah, I guess it was..." Eiro pushed his hand into the satchel and took out the bottle with the slime-core. It seemed like while it was slightly shaking and confused, it for the most part wasn't really affected by Leon's skills too much. The Demon wasn't sure why exactly that was the case, but he had some theories at least.

"Come on, tell us. Why were there monsters in this area besides the ones at the temple?" Eiro asked, and with a shaking voice that still sounded as if someone was speaking with water in their mouth, the slime core replied, "It... Was like with u-us... We got used t-to it, so did other m-monst-ters in the area..."

"Fair enough. But why are you this scared of Leon if you can handle miasma like that?" Eiro asked next, noting how the slime even started stuttering a bit.

"It... That... That thing is different... We feared the sealed be-being due to its strength... But thi-this thing terrifies me in a di-different way... But at the same time, I... don't want to leave..."

With a slight frown and anger at hearing Leon be called a 'thing', Eiro stared at the slime core in the bottle, "Try being a bit more respectful, you're not in a position to insult my son."

"Sh-Shut it, you ru-ruined the temple! Let me be dis-disrespectful!"

"Fair enough..." Eiro had to admit, and then looked over toward Nelli and Gondos again, "Alright, as it said, the monsters in the area got used to <The World> Miasma, that's why they were here. Now, can one of you go get the others?" Eiro asked them, and Nelli quickly chose to take on that role, even though she had one last question.

"You really think that's a good idea..? Because the monsters don't seem to be too happy at the moment, it might be dangerous." She asked, and Eiro immediately nodded his head, "I know, but even if there are any monster that will try attacking... I'll just kill them. I'm only three levels away from 100, so I'll be able to evolve again." Eiro explained, and while Nelli seemed quite surprised, she figured that it did make sense, considering that Eiro just killed a Royal Monster.

"I see... Well, as long as you're confident, it should be fine. The monsters around here don't really seem to be all that strong. I'll be right back, then." Nelli pointed out as she quickly stared floating into the direction of the town, while Eiro swiftly stepped over toward Sammy.

"Gondos, pick up Leon again. He wasn't too heavy for you, right?" The Demon asked, and the Golem swiftly shook his head, "Absolutely not. We Golems are quite physically strong, it seems."

"I'm glad to hear that." Eiro replied, as he watched the spirit swoop his arms underneath Leon's small body and wrap it with some extra rock. Meanwhile, Eiro just picked up Sammy and carried her piggyback-style, using his satchel's strap as well as his own tail to keep her body safely up against Eiro's back.

"Alright, and now..." Eiro muttered quietly as he stepped up to the side of the path and started looking down the rock-wall underneath him, "Make sure not to drop Leon. Keep close to the walls and use them to support yourself and Leon's weight if you need to." Eiro suggested, and then proceeded to slowly lean forward until he was able to just kick off the edge.

The Demon fell and fell until another part of the path started appearing underneath him that he would be crashing into soon. Using air-magic, Eiro pushed his body closer to the rock-wall and tried to slow himself down by pushing his feet into the rock and slowly gathering a mass of rock underneath his feet.

At some point, the pressure of Eiro rapidly slowing down became too much, so the Demon kicked off again so that he was moving more horizontally than vertically now, immediately reducing his speed manyfold.

And while this did cause Eiro to fly forward a fair bit, using air magic, he was able to move his body back toward the path. Since he wasn't that high up anymore, as he basically started falling as if he jumped just from a couple meters high up, he was able to catch himself easily without waking or disturbing Sammy too much.

It seemed like Gondos had been fairly surprised to see Eiro just jump off the side of the mountain and instantly traverse a height of a couple dozen meters, but he was able to follow Eiro pretty soon, "Eiro! That was insane, and dangerous! Why would you do that?!" He exclaimed, and the Demon slowly turned his head over toward him. Sure, it was dangerous, but it wasn't that bad, right? Eiro had his body under control perfectly, after all. Although... Gondos probably had a point...

"Status." Eiro muttered, and quickly had the screen appear in front of him. He had 420 stat points left to assign at the moment. Putting them into his stats before continuing this shouldn't hurt too much.

First, since they were quite low compared to his other stats, Eiro increased his strength, resistance, and evasion to 100 each, spending a total of 100 of his currently available points.

[Your Strength has passed the 100 point mark! <Gladiator's Strength> Ability Gained!]

[Your Resistance has passed the 100 point mark! <Rock Skin> Ability Gained!]

[Your Evasion has passed the 100 point mark! <Adrenaline Rush > Ability Gained!]

[Gladiator's Strength – Ability that passively increases your body's strength]

[Rock Skin – Ability that lets you harden your skin]

[Adrenaline Rush – Ability that temporarily increases the speed of perception while reducing pain in danger situations]

With this, Eiro should be able to handle impact far more easily, at least. It should definitely help with this. Now, Eiro had 320 more stat points left. He increased his agility to 200 as well, since agility was his most important physical stat in general. And of course it also helped him here.

[Your Agility has passed the 200 point mark! <Quick Feet> ability turned into <Swift Feet>]

Eiro appreciated the new ability and then chose to place 50 points into each intelligence, wisdom, dexterity, and perception. With another 76 points remaining, Eiro figured he shouldn't try and be stingy, and then put 26 points into charisma. Charisma should also be able to increase his Leadership ability in the Goblin village, after all. Now, Eiro once more had 50 points left over, which he would save for an emergency again. And so, this was now his status.

[Name – Eiro][Race – Ice Blue Collector Imp][Level – 97]

[Health – 55.000][Mana – 105.500]

[Strength - 100][Constitution - 100][Resistance - 100]

[Agility - 200][Evasion - 100][Dexterity - 150]

[Intelligence - 250][Wisdom - 250]

[Perception - 150][Willpower - 100][Charisma - 56]

[50 Stat Points Available]

With his stats properly assigned now, Eiro was able to more safely keep on going. And so, the Demon continued climbing down the side of the mountain. Although, he did have to admit that he was probably being a little reckless before, so he did slow down a bit. But since it was pretty late anyway, Eiro still wanted to get down to the foot of the mountain before dusk started.. The Demon kept sliding down the slopes made of rock with the young woman on his back and the Golem next to him.