DEMON'S VIRTUE

Eiro stood in front of his new manor together with his children as well as his party. They just arrived there after Solomon confirmed that it was ready to be moved into, and the King sent someone with them to make sure they actually got there and knew about everything that was a part of the place.

The man that was sent with them was currently unlocking the front door while the children were starting to carry their luggage up the stairs leading to the doors, while Eiro's party just stood there completely baffled, "Th-This..." Jess muttered, "This is your house now?" She asked, and Eiro turned toward her with a light smile and nodded his head.

"Seems like it. Anyway, we're going around the back for now to the gardens. There's a good spot where we can leave the cart for now and then bring everything inside later." The Demon explained, and then turned over toward Rudy, who was currently closest to him, "Can you guys handle things over here yourselves? I'll be right there as well, we just have to get this to the back."

The young man glanced at the members of Eiro's party and slowly nodded his head as he looked back at Eiro, "Yeah, it's fine. Take your time." Rudy said, and then carried some of the kitchenware they had up the stairs, while Eiro led the others around the back.

They stopped the cart at a part of the manor that seemed to be 'temporary stables', where one could leave their horse or carriage while inside of the manor for just a short time so that you didn't have to bring it all the way to the stables.

After they made sure that the cages were in good condition and the spiders weren't too cold right now, Eiro walked up the stairs to the back-entrance and just walked inside. There was still someone cleaning the room here, and they had opened the door to let a bit of fresh air inside.

The woman cleaning was startled and looked at the group confusedly, "Excuse me, but can I help you somehow?" She asked, and Eiro slowly shook his head, "No, that's fine. But it's nice to meet you, I'm Eiro, the new Master of this house." The Demon explained, extending his hand toward her, and quite startled, the maid looked back at the man in front of her.

It seemed like she didn't really believe that Eiro was actually the one he said he was, after all, he didn't necessarily look like a noble, and a regular commoner wouldn't usually be able to live inside of this kind of place.

But a few moments later, the man that Solomon sent with Eiro and the others entered through the other door from the hallway and confirmed Eiro's words, "It's true, that man is now the new Master of this Manor. Treat him, his companions, and his children with honor if you will. He is a personal friend of his royal Majesty."

Immediately after hearing this man of influence who the woman seemed to know of speak, she bowed forward in front of Eiro, "Excuse my rudeness! I will finish my job and then take my leave!" The woman exclaimed before turning around without shaking the hand that Eiro was still offering to her, so the Demon just shrugged and sighed and moved on.

"Master Eiro, are you sure that you do not wish to keep some of the personnel that his Majesty has offered you?" The man asked, but Eiro could reply to that question without a moment's hesitation, "I am sure. I don't want anyone I can't trust here, sorry. I'll look for people that I want to work for me myself." The Demon said bluntly, and the man slowly nodded his head, "I see. Then we will respect your wishes."

Now that that was taken care of, the group continued further into the manor. It seemed like the children were already choosing their rooms and exploring the rest of the house now that everything was properly prepared and cleaned up, which it really wasn't the last time they came here.

Eiro was also looking through this place, and was glad to see that the more hidden parts of this manor weren't discovered. The reason why Eiro could move into this manor was simple. Nobody else wanted to move in here, and there were multiple reasons for that.

For one, it was one of the few nobles' manors that wasn't actually inside of the middle part of the town, where the actual urban areas were, but inside of the outermost part. That meant that in the case of a monster attack, this manor would be one of the first to fall, and that was a slight bit too risky for most nobles. But Eiro didn't care.

This outermost area was really enormous, so large that there were even actual forests in here. Sure, they weren't large forests compared to what could be found outside of the town, but the forest surrounding Eiro and the others was still enough to give them the privacy that the Demon wanted to have. And that was also part of what led to the second reason why others didn't want to stay here coming into existence.

The person that lived here before was rather keen on performing different magical experiments. It seemed like he was a person that many knew about as he was rather eccentric, or as Eiro actually heard him be described, 'batshit crazy'. After he died through one of his own experiments, nobody really wanted to live here because of what might lurk inside of the hidden passages and areas that every single manor usually had.

They were mostly meant as emergency escape pathways, but when people were known to do rather shady things, these hidden passages were immediately connected with 'evil lairs' or 'laboratories of mad magicians' or something like that.

Well, in this case they weren't necessarily wrong, although they couldn't know that. Technically it was confirmed multiple times that there weren't such rooms underneath this manor, so publicly, these were all still just petty rumors.

The fact that these rumors were actually completely correct was probably unknown to even Solomon, since all these hidden rooms and passageways were hidden with the use of special magic. In particular, the hidden part of the library was something that Eiro was rather curious about. He just didn't have the chance to explore all these places yet, something he would get to as quickly as he could.

Either way, somehow, the parts that deterred others from wanting to move in here were actually the things that Eiro found to be perfect for him. They were far away from the town and couldn't be bothered, so Eiro could just walk around without his mask, or have the children practice their Unique Skills in the gardens without having to worry about anyone noticing. Because like this, if there was anyone that might know that shouldn't know, Eiro would be able to find them. Otherwise there might just be neighbors or townsfolk that could accidentally notice that Eiro didn't pay attention to at all.

And the reason why Eiro found the hidden passages intriguing was obvious, there were a lot of things that Eiro wanted to hide away himself, so this was perfect. The only issue was that Eiro would have to clean up all the hidden rooms alone, because the things in there seemed to be a little too dangerous to have the children help him out a bit.

Well, Rudy and Sammy, maybe, he could trust those two not to mess around, but as for the others... It was too risky. Even with Felix it was too risky, although Eiro knew well enough that he wasn't the type to make jokes like that or screw around like Clementine and Arc may, but because of his current state, there might be communication issues that could cause quite a lot of havoc if they weren't careful.

And in the end, even if one was careful, there might still be things happening nonetheless that Eiro didn't want to expose any of the children to. So, he would rather do it on his own.

Just when Eiro was trying to think about what these different rooms could be used for, Krog voiced how impressed he was, "This is so fuckin' crazy, holy... Why do you get to live in this literal mansion, and we have to stay in some shitty rented apartment in town?" Krog asked, and Eiro looked at him with a light frown, "Shitty rented apartment? I came there with you guys once before, and it was two times larger than the whole house that the children and I, plus an old grumpy man lived in together for seven years. Stop complaining. But if you want, you can stay here as well." The Demon said with a light sigh, and the three of them immediately looked at Eiro in confusion.

"...What? You want us to live in this manor with you?" Jess asked, and Eiro simply shrugged, "Sure, why not? There's more than enough space in here."

"That is indeed true. There is a comfortable amount of living space here." The man that was sent by Solomon confirmed, as if he still had to sell this house to them, and James kept looking at Eiro with a light frown.

"You sure this is a good idea? I mean, I'm not gonna complain about getting to live in a mansion, but what about your kids? Besides just now, we've met them once, and it doesn't seem like they have great memories about us from that time." The Light Elf pointed out, and Eiro slowly nodded his head, "Yeah... I'll have a talk with them for now about that. But I doubt it's going to be an issue. For the next while, you'll all be here a lot anyway, no matter if you actively live here or not."

"Ah, that's true..." Jess replied, and Eiro slowly nodded and then continued walking through the mansion, shown around a little by the human man in front of them.

For now, Eiro was trying to spread his mana around this place as much as he could so that he could use the same magic detection method as he usually used before like this to gain more information on the different secret passages inside of this house. He knew that they were here, he just didn't know exactly what they looked like. Any sort of information helped, really.

For now Eiro was trying to do this with the help of wind magic, but he would be glad once this man would finally leave so that Eiro could actually actively explore everything himself.