DEMON'S VIRTUE

"Now sit down and let me repair your arm." Eiro said with a deep glare directed at James, who just ground his teeth together and sat down on the rock that Gondos made for him just now.

Eiro squatted down and started to first clean James' prosthetic up again, "Do you understand what I mean now, James? In your mind, you might think that this arm is perfect for you, but that's just because you were never able to make use of your skills ever since your arm was taken. Now that your skills work a bit better again, you think everything is amazing. But in the end, this arm is nothing but a first step."

"And what are the next steps?" James asked with a light glare, since he was more than just annoyed at this whole situation. Eiro grumbled to himself for a moment and grabbed his carving knife out of his treasury before cutting a small wedge out of his own prosthetic. And then, he just pressed the piece that he cut out back onto his wooden hand, "This is one of them, at least. When I first got this hand, I was given a percentage of how well it could connect to me. The higher it rose, the better I could use my hand and it became more like a real one. At some point, it started being able to regenerate in this manner."

James looked at Eiro's prosthetic and then at his own. With a light sigh, the Demon started fixing the joints that James messed up, "James, but seriously, stop it. You're really pissing me off right here, and if you don't just shut up and listen to me while I'm talking to you, I'll rip that useless brain of yours right out of your head." Eiro whispered and after fixing James' arm stood up.

"Get moving now. You'll fight for another two or three hours and then take another break. After that you're going to continue until night." Eiro said as he started returning to Lugo, although Jess quickly voiced her complaints, "What? That long?! But we already killed dozens of these spiders! We leveled up this much already, can't we just stop for the day?"

"...What?" Eiro asked with a light frown, "You leveled up 'this much'? You know, I leveled up more than a dozen times in one go once. Literally, after beating just one enemy." Eiro explained, something that made Krog, Jess and James more than just confused.

"A dozen times? When was that? What kind of enemy did you beat? Was it when you were freed?" Jess asked confusedly. Eiro just turned around toward her and shook his head, "A few weeks ago. The chief warrior of Argberg tried to frame me for killing someone that I wanted to kill but didn't. We were pursued by numerous forces, and in the end, I managed to get rid of Enka. The way I did was a little like cheating, but you know. He was also cheating in the same way, so I don't mind."

"You..." Krog muttered quietly, "You killed that man? Enka Markos?"

"Mhm, that's what I just said." Eiro replied, "You have a problem with that?"

"No, it ain't that, but... You really are that strong, huh?" The big guy asked with a broad grin. It seemed like he somehow got excited, and Eiro lightly raised his brows, "I mean, I wasn't at the time. My stats now are higher than his were, sure, but back then they were far below his. I grew rather rapidly in these past few weeks."

"Amazing... That guy, Enka... he was supposed to be one of the strongest men in that country, right?" Jess asked as she turned toward Krog, who just nodded, "Yep, he was. Insanely so. People thought he might've been able to become part of the hero's party. And Eiro killed him and even became stronger than him..?"

"What are you talking about? He wasn't that strong." Eiro replied with an immediate frown, "He was at most comparable to a B-Rank adventurer, I would guess."

"What are you talking about..? B-Rank adventurers are strong, sure, but not that strong..." James pointed out with a frown, and Eiro sighed lightly.

"Right, I guess it's not necessarily common knowledge. I am, or was, friends with the guild master back where we lived. He told me the few things that he knew about. From Rank C onward, the difference in strength becomes insane. The average C ranker is ten times weaker than the weakest B ranker, and the adverage B ranker is a hundred times weaker than the weakest A ranker. And the average A ranker is a thousand times weaker than the weakest S ranker." Eiro explained, and the others looked at him confusedly.

"Then we're ten times weaker than Enka..?" Jess asked, and Eiro immediately shook his head, "Of course not. I would say you're pretty high up within the C-rank abilty wise. And just to make it clear, it's obviously not all about stats. Talent, values, and skills play a big role in such things as well. Your guys' stats are half of what Enka's were, but that doesn't mean he was twice as strong as you are now. Once you get to his stat-level, you'll be stronger than he was when he died, I assume."

It seemed like Eiro's words somehow made all three of them rather excited. After all, it seemed like Enka was rather famous. Obviously he wasn't as strong as all those rumours said he was, it was most likely a part of his charisma and charming ability that people looked at him so favorably. Maybe Eiro should increase his charisma a bit more after all... it might be a bit useful to have people look up to him a bit more, after all.

Either way, for now, the others kept on going and fighting the spiders, far more motivated than they were before. They killed the spiders, and Eiro collected their blood while taking them apart for their other parts. They would be good materials to hand in at the guild to rank up a little there, after all.

For the most part, Eiro tried his best to collect the parts that were actually useful, like the eyes, the venom, and parts of the exoskeleton, but there were other things that Eiro was considering doing.

It was a rare type of request, because not many people required such specimens for their work, but sometimes it happened that live monsters needed to be caught for a request. Eiro figured that depending on how things went, it might be a good idea to capture some of the spiders. Not just so that he could quickly increase his guild rank, but also for the goblin village.

Eiro was actually discussing the possibility with the slime a little bit, and it seemed both promising and troublesome.

"Hm... Yeah, it's gonna be pretty annoying to deal with those. Since they're dumbasses, it's easier to seal mental traits and stuff in general, but at the same time, exactly that makes their instinct and monstrosity wilder. We can probably do it, but we'll need to play around with those bugs a bit." The slime explained.

Eiro didn't necessarily mind, the issue was just that it didn't seem like something that could be done quickly. And Eiro couldn't just spend all his time in the goblin village, at least not for now. Not until he found people he could actually trust to keep Avalin and Leon save in town while he went off to do his own thing for a week or so. He couldn't just take them with him all the time either, that would be too stressful for them at the end of the day.

So, in the end, Eiro had just one choice. He would handpick a couple of these spiders to take back to town and then specially train them within his manor. There was supposedly more than enough space to do something like that there after all. And having a couple of wild monsters there for a while might be useful for Leon's training as well.

And so, the Demon made a decision, "When I tell you to, stop fighting and let me take over for the current encounter. I want to try a few things out." Eiro announced to the three people in front. They looked at Eiro rather confusedly, but in the end just accepted the Demon's choice.

For a good while, Eiro didn't find anything that he had any proper interest in. The footsoldiers were weak and nothing special. They were a good base to play around with when it came to getting them to evolve somehow, but Eiro couldn't think of a proper reason to get them even then.

What he was most interested in were Day Stalkers, Night Stalkers, and the big guys like those that James attacked with his bare hands before. Eiro could sense some of all of those around here, but they were somewhat avoiding the group, it seemed. Maybe they just wanted to gauge their strength a bit more using weak soldiers? If that was the case, then the one controlling them was definitely rather intelligent. Maybe a high-commoner, or a knight-rank noble. Either way, it would most likely be too hard for James, Jess and Krog to deal with, so Eiro could use it as a good means to level up one more time. It would be preferable if Eiro were able to get his hands on that spider-queen or whatever it was itself, actually.

It was most likely actively breeding these other spiders, so having it would give Eiro a nearly infinite source of spiders to sell or use as mules for the goblin village.

Either way, at some point, Eiro did find some spiders that he took a bit of a liking to. Exactly those sub-races that he wanted. In total he managed to capture two of the big guys, and stopped at a dozen of each the day stalkers and night stalkers. The latter were especially annoying, actually.

The big ones were slow and really not that agile, so after flipping them on their back with earth magic, Eiro was able to easily make it impossible for them to escape using a little bit of ice on their limbs.

For the day stalkers it was similar, they weren't combat-types after all, so they weren't able to resist in the slightest and could be easily captured just like that.

The night stalkers however had especially bothersome limbs. They were stronger and more nimble than those of other spiders, so they often managed to cut away on the ice a little to free their legs. Of course Eiro stopped them whenever they tried to do it, but it was still annoying.

With a bit of trickery with Leon's 'Loved by Monsters' skill, he was able to make it so that the big spiders were actually just following them, so Eiro didn't have to worry too much as long as he paid proper attention, and he could just have them carry all of the live-spiders and spider-materials as well.

Eiro had some other stuff at the goblin-village that would make it easier to deal with them as well, but he actually had his eyes on a whole other spider at the moment. He definitely noticed some of its threads around here, so he knew that he could find it, and through the smell of the threads he would know when he found it, but in the end, it seemed like a quite evasive one. Weirdly even more so than the day and night stalkers, which were specifically meant to be evasive.

Either way, once the group got close to the nest and the encounters became more frequent and troublesome, Eiro finally managed to spot one. A small, fist-sized spider that was reflecting the light of the setting sun.

A rare sort of spider that wasn't often found in the wild, and if it did, only if it was a spider that evolved after feeding on the equipment of dead adventurers or wares that merchants accidentally dropped while fleeing from other monsters.

It was the Rust Eater.. A spider capable of spinning metallic thread.