DEMON'S VIRTUE

"The Hero is that young? Then why is there a tournament to choose his companions already?" Eiro asked confusedly, and Solomon quickly explained, "It is so that the Hero can properly be trained. He was found only recently, in a small island kingdom to the west. It's always been a neutral and quite safe place, so there are not many strong people there, so they asked for help from other countries that can not only train the hero to properly control his own powers, but to accompany the hero during his journey."

"That means if I win the tournament, I'll have to go to that place? It would be too risky to send a child like that to another country without appropriate bodyguards, after all." Eiro pointed out, and Solomon slowly nodded his head.

"Yes, that is indeed the case. But the Hero's training can not begin until he becomes 10 years old, due to multiple circumstances, so it will still take a few years nonetheless."

After a bit of thought, Eiro turned around and looked at the children behind him before sighing deeply. He was actually a bit conflicted now. There were definitely benefits as well as disadvantages, although the latter obviously outweighed the former. Usually, Eiro would have probably declined, but there was a way to make sure he could get what he wanted without issues. After all, he couldn't ask Solomon to let the children into the Skyhart Academy right after declining what he was asked to do.

But instead, on the off-chance that Eiro should actually be the strongest in this country, which seemed incredibly unlikely in the first place, Eiro could just play weak and drop out during the semi-finals and act like he did his best. Solomon couldn't blame him then, now could he?

"Alright, fine. I'll take part in the tournament, but I would like a favor from you in return." Eiro pointed out, and Solomon immediately nodded his head without even a moment of hesitation, "Of course! Whatever you wish for!"

"I want you to give the children a spot in the Academy for a course of their choosing. Then, I would like a place for us to stay at inside of this town. I can even pay for it, but I just need you to help me find a safe place."

"Huh..?" Solomon asked with surprise, "That's it? I had expected you may ask for a large sum of money, or equipment made from the world's greatest craftsmen..."

"We met while I was trying to pick up equipment the world's greatest craftsman made for us, and I coincidentally am quite wealthy. So I don't need either of that." The Demon pointed out, and Solomon quietly chuckled and slowly nodded his head.

"I guess that is true. But of course they can become students at the academy. Due to the incident back then, the last semester had to be postponed, so the classes for the newest students will be starting soon after the turn of the year." The King explained swiftly, "And if you wish, I can give you a property to make use of without you needing to pay for it. There is a manor that has been vacant for a few years now. While the building itself may not be too large, it has a rather large property surrounding it that can be easily used for different training."

Eiro slowly crossed his arms and looked at the King in front of him, "Is there a reason why it's been vacant for so long?"

"It used to belong to a rather... unliked man. He was a researcher, a mage to be exact, and he made quite a few enemies for himself. After his death, his children tried to sell it, and in the end the town had to buy it because nobody else wanted to. I would guess you don't care about things like that, though." Solomon explained.

Eiro lightly smiled and nodded his head, "I don't. Then I would gladly take that property, thank you." The Demon said, even lightly bowing forward as he was doing so.

"I will have staff prepared right away as well. I will introduce you to them lat-"

"That's fine, I don't need things like maids, butlers, or chefs. Or rather... I would like to look for some trustworthy people myself." Eiro explained to Solomon, and the King slowly nodded his head, "I understand. Then I will have you brought there soon. First, let us eat something." Solomon suggested, something that Eiro gladly agreed to. Although just when Eiro was about to sit down on the couch, he heard something else out in the hallway that seemed quite familiar to him.

"Just a second." Eiro muttered and stepped up toward the door. With a quick pull he opened it up and revealed none other than the prince standing there with a crutch under his armpit, "Well, hello there." The Demon said. The prince stared back at him with a surprised expression and lowered his hand, as it seemed like he was just about to knock on the door.

"H-Hello!" He exclaimed nervously, and Eiro took a step away from the door, "Perfect timing. I wanted to check on you today anyway." Eiro explained and then looked at Solomon, "I doubt you mind him coming in?"

"Of course not! I actually wanted to have him called here, so that he can properly thank you himself."

Slowly, the prince came into the room with the help of the crutch under his arm, which already seemed to be an incredible advancement for him. From what Eiro could tell just like this, his wounds healed pretty well after all.

"Arc, Rudy, scooch over." The Demon said and then pointed at the prince, moving his finger toward the spot that the two boys just opened up, "Charles, right? Go ahead and sit down there for a second, and pull your pant-leg up as much as you can."

"Yes! Thank you!" He exclaimed and slowly sat down on the couch. Eiro took the crutch from him and leaned it onto the back of the couch for now while the prince, pulled his pant-leg up like Eiro asked him to.

The Demon squatted down in front of him and slowly ran his wooden fingers over the area where Charles' leg-prosthetic had merged with his flesh and then placed his finger onto the wood of the prosthetic, "Say 'Now' when you can feel my finger on your skin." Eiro told him, and then slowly started running his finger up the leg until he reached a spot a few centimeters above the merging-line, "Now." Charles said, and Eiro slowly nodded his head in satisfaction.

"Alright, good. Show me your arm as well, please. Same thing, say 'Now' when you can feel my finger." Eiro told him, and Charles quickly nodded his head. There didn't seem to be any issues here either, so Eiro stood back up in satisfaction.

"So, how does it feel? Does it hurt sometimes where the prosthetics connect to your limbs, or do you randomly receive a little damage in the single digits?" Eiro asked as he slowly kept looking Charles up and down. The color of his face definitely improved. Still pale, but not deadly pale. And he seemed to have gained a little weight as well, even if he was still not really close to being average weight. Charles still had a lot of work ahead of him, but he was on the right track, at least.

Nervous because of those questions, Charles turned his head over toward his father, who quickly answered for him, "Both of that happened, actually. Is something wrong? Is his body not made for them after all..?" Solomon asked anxiously, and Eiro looked at him with a bit of thought and then shrugged.

"Yes and no, really. Obviously anyone's body isn't made to connect so closely with artificial limbs. There's going to be some minor issues. But neither of those things is too big a problem. As long as its not numbingly painful you're alright. It's just that your body is still always kind of changing to more closely connect to the prosthetic, especially early on. So particularly when you put too much weight on the leg, for example, it's going to hurt a bit."

"Ah, so the damage is part of the healing process? Like when you had to cut off parts of his skin to attach the prosthetics?" Solomon asked, and Eiro slowly shook his head, "The pain is, the damage isn't. That's a bit of a different issue. The limbs are made to be actual parts of your body. You won't feel anything with that leg right now, but it can still take damage. It takes a while to get used to it, but soon enough you'll stop treating the prosthetics so rough subconsciously and it will be fine." Eiro explained, and Arc quickly tuned in, since he had a lot to say about that as well.

"Oh yeah, at some point, you just learn to treat your body with care even if you can't feel anything." He pointed out, and Clementine stared at him with a wry smile, "Says the guy that accidentally bit off parts of his tongue more than just once..."

"Hey, that's not my fault. It was your turn to cook that night, so-"

"You little..." Clementine interrupted Arc with a death-stare, although Eiro couldn't help but groan to himself as Solomon asked, "Eiro, does that child also have a prosthetic?"

With a slow shake of his head, Eiro started to explain, "I guess I should tell you so that no surprises come up when they start attending school. You see, these children all have-"

"Wh-What are you doing? I thought we're supposed to keep it a secret!" Rudy exclaimed, and Eiro shrugged, "Yup, but both Solomon and Charles also have unique skills, so it's fine. I'd think."

Startle and confused, both of the ones mentioned stared at Eiro confusedly, "What, how do you..?" Charles asked, and Solomon added, "Did you say 'also'?"

"Yes, I did say 'also'. All of these children have unique skills, and I saved them from being exploited for them years ago. As you might have guessed, they're not my real children. And Charles, to answer your question... In everyone's scent, there's minor details revealing things like that. What your race is, which sort of magic element you may have, which sort of skills you make use of, and how strong you are. Especially when I did that thing before, Solomon, I was able to confirm that it was really the case." Eiro explained, "And when you think about it, it kind of makes sense. Your family name is the same as the country's name, so you are probably descendants of those that founded this country.. It only makes sense for a person like that to have special abilities."