DEMON'S VIRTUE

Eiro looked at the group of three adventurers that was standing there speechlessly, "So? What was that about helping me?" The demon asked with a light smile on his face, hidden by his mask, and Donny just started to laugh all of a sudden.

"Man, that's a huge fucking surprise... We kind of heard that you were a noble or something, but that you were the king's candidate for the tournament... shit, you really must be strong, huh?" He asked with a laugh, but in response, Eiro quickly shook his head, "I'm not a noble." Eiro pointed out, "I would say I'm pretty strong, though."

Immediately, Donny, Craig and Loyd looked at each other for a moment before the Archer Craig spoke up, "What do you mean, you're not a noble? Then how are you so trusted by the King?" He asked with a light scoff, "Come on, tell us your family name, that might explain it."

"Or tell us your name in general, we haven't heard it yet." Loyd pointed out, and Donny quickly nodded his head, "Right, but well, a lot of adventurers like to keep their name secret from others, so no need to tell us if you don't-"

"Eiro." The Demon said, and Donny swallowed the rest of his words, basically choking on them, "Hm..?" He asked, not able to say anything else. After he said that word, others that had been paying attention to Erio the whole time anyway after he brought in those slime cores and nuclei were even more intrigued and confused.

"I just told you my name. Eiro. I don't have a family name or anything." He explained, and Donny stared down at him.

"Hey, hey, that's a bad joke. First off, if you choose an alias, then that's one that's going to get you in a lot of trouble. And I earnestly don't believe you don't have a family name. Someone like that couldn't even hope to meet the king."

"And still I did." Eiro replied, and then slowly turned around as the Guild Employee returned to hand him his guild card back. The Demon just held the card forward toward the group of three to show them that it really was his name.

"Holy fucking... What kind of parent names their child Eiro these days?!" Loyd exclaimed, "That's fucked up, there must be so many people that hate your guts for having the same name as the great hero!"

"A handful. But well, just wait a second, I have to get my request reward." Eiro pointed out and turned around toward the desk behind him, before the guild employee looked at Eiro with a light smile.

"We were able to turn the items you handed in into separate requests. You see, gathering whole slime nuclei like that is usually a C-Rank request, at least for this sort of slime. As such, for completing twelve C-Rank requests and five D-Rank requests while at G-Rank, you have now been promoted from G-Rank to D-Rank, congratulations! Here is the one leftover slime nucleus that we couldn't turn into a request." The employee explained, and Eiro just stood there and stared at him.

"Hm? Promoted to D-Rank that quickly?" Eiro asked, and the employee quickly nodded his head, "Yes, of course. There are many things that play into how much requests will help you promote your rank. If you are solo or a member of a party, how long it took you to finish requests, and of course how many ranks the request is above your own. In this case, it all played into your incredible jump to D-Rank. You are currently not eligible for it, but I would still like to inform you that once you will have to take part in a skill evaluation in order to become a C-Rank adventurer." The employee explained, and Eiro slowly nodded his head. He was still surprised, but he wasn't opposed to this all in the slightest. Why would he? That would just make it easier for him to get all the information that he wanted to get.

Of course, since he was close to Solomon, he got information on a whole other level than what these guys could find out, but that was exactly it. It was on a whole other level, and with that, the information had a different perspective. Solomon only truly had to care for things that were a direct threat to towns, regions, or even the whole country. Even he didn't know about the breeding grounds of every single monster in the country. However, there were a lot of adventurers that did.

And so, Eiro hoped to be able to gain information that was directly useful to him in leveling up as well as gathering. Right now, what Eiro was looking for was a certain place he had to get to in order to find the special type of seed that Eiro used for his own tree back then as well so that he could have Charles grow the tree on his own. It was the best way to produce a proper prosthetic, after all.

Those seeds were kind of hard to find, so Eiro had to really look as best as he could for a while, meaning he needed all the information he could get.

Either way, for now, Eiro pushed all the bundles of money he got, as well as the extra slime nucleus, into his bag. He looked at Donny, Craig and Loyd, who were more than just excited to see someone's rank promoted that quickly. Eiro smiled at them, but then said that he was going to sit down at one of the tables and wait for an acquaintance. Donny offered to wait with him for a while so that it wouldn't get as boring, but Eiro quickly shook his head.

"Sorry, I need to talk to him about private things." The demon said, "Thanks for the offer, though." Eiro added, and then turned aorund to head toward an empty table in the corner of the room. Donny, Craig and Loyd seemed a bit disappointed, but in the end they just sat down somewhere at the bar and hung out together.

And so, Eiro was left to just wait. He pulled a book out of his treasury without letting anyone see where he pulled it out from, and slowly flipped it open. Eiro figured he could just read a little while he was waiting for James to come here tonight.

Although, Eiro barely had time to read two pages. Because when he started with the third one, Eiro noticed James' scent. Not too long after, the door to the guild opened up. James stood there for a while in the entrance area and looked around, soon spotting the stag sitting on the ground next to the table Eiro was sitting at.

In a straight line, James made his way over toward Eiro, the two exposed daggers on his hip slightly clanking against the metal parts of his belt. With a deep glare, James smashed his remaining hand on the table in front of the Demon.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" James asked, grinding his teeth together as he stared at Eiro, "Take a seat, and I'll explain." The Demon suggested, and James, without moving his eyes away from Eiro, sat down opposite to Eiro.

"Now tell me why the fuck you're in this town, or I'll rip your fucking head off, got it?" The Light Elf said in a growling, commanding tone, and Eiro just lightly smiled underneath his mask as he pulled something out of his treasury.

It was a leather collar with a gem placed into the front. It had been cut through on the side, and the gem had a few cracks in it. Confusedly, James looked down at it and then raised his head to look at Eiro, "What is this? Why would you-"

"You know exactly what it is. The necklace you guys tried to use to control me. It's just that it wasn't made for demons, so I was able to escape the control. Do you want to know when I escaped that control?" Eiro asked, and James just glared at him, "The control disappeared when Avalin died, didn't it? And then you just left after stealing her stuff."

With a light sigh, the demon shook his head, "Such control works differently. When the one who controls dies, the one who is controlled dies as well. No, do you remember back then? Before we traveled through that floating island, in the Inn, you made Avalin weaken the control to try and prove a point. After that, escaping was easy. It finally worked when we were running away from <The Sun>, while we were still on the bridge."

Immediately, James ripped his eyes open and stared at Eiro, "What the fuck do you mean? No, after that Avalin made you gather wood, and you brought that pheasant back for us. And we travelled together for a week after that..." James pointed out, and Eiro slowly nodded his head.

"Mhm. Listen, James. I'm not a normal Imp, that's quite obvious, isn't it? Before I met you guys, I lived for roughly a week. Sure, I was a slave to you guys, but Avalin was still kind to me. James, I named my daughter after her." Eiro explained to James, who was just sitting there, and then just started to laugh quietly.

"You... you think you should speak about that in a guild filled with people that kill monsters for a liv-"

"Look around you. Do you think anyone cares in the slightest? No, because I used a special spell that basically forces people to ignore us as if we weren't even here. Of course, we're here, they can still see us out of the corner of their eye, but that's all. If they try to focus on us, they'll just lose focus immediately. They can't hear us, they can't fully see us. I could even take off my mask, and nobody would care." Eiro pointed out. While he was reading the book, he had also been preparing a spell that made use of the Ace of Cups in that way. It was a different method than just using the potion after it's been turned into mist. It focused on a whole other aspect of the Ace of Cups to that method, but it was one that was just as useful.

Although it might lose its effectiveness in combat, it would be useful in situations like this for sure, where Eiro didn't want to be bothered.

"That's got to be a joke, right?" James said with a puzzled expression, but Eiro just shook his head, "It's not. Now, let's continue. Trust me, I didn't want Avalin's death. And while I'm aware you hate monsters, you obviously deeply cared for Avalin, more so than a regular friend would."

Once more, James opened his eyes wide, "How do you-"

"How old were you back then? 18, 19? I'm not an idiot, I have children around that age. A bit younger, but I still learned to read between the lines. It just makes sense, looking back on it. And so, this brings me to the other reason why I showed you the ownership collar. As a Light Elf, you have the highly magical body of the elves, but the incapability of actually casting magic of dark elves, right? In return, Light Elves have developed magical senses similar to that of Spirits, albeit far weaker. James, inside of this collar, there is still some of Avalin's magic left. I don't know how much that's going to help, but I want to give it to you as a peace offering in the hopes of forming a party with you and your two companions."

James stared deeply at Eiro, and just started to glare at him, "And why would you want that?"

As if it was obvious, Eiro looked up at James and pulled the three of swords out of his treasury, activating it immediately and making the five blades press against James' throat without him even being able to react, "Because otherwise, it would mean I have to kill you. And I don't know why, but despite it being the case when I first met you, as well as when you destroyed the statue at the hut back then, I can't bring myself to completely despise you.. So I'd like to see if I can make use of those feelings for once."