DEMON'S VIRTUE

Eiro sat on the ground cross-legged. He second-stage infused his whole body with water magic again, and was currently trying to transfer the vibrations from the ground into his body as practice. He wanted to figure out good ways to increase the range of his perception of this kind.

Just due to the increase in his mental stats, that range already increased an incredible amount, but Eiro still wanted to reach further than that, with as much accuracy as absolutely possible. And so, the demon made use of any magic that he could to bring anything that could cause some sort of sensory reaction to him. The vibration of the footsteps of everyone in the house, the small bugs, rabbits or rats scattering around. The sound of everyone breathing, their blood flowing through their bodies while their hearts beat continuosly.

The flow of the air as it moved around the trees and walls. Eiro had an image in his mind that was basically a perfect representation of his current property, that included the mansion, its garden, and a part of the forest directly around them. Of course, Eiro mixed the things he 'sensed' with the memories he had of this place visually in general for this, so everything became much clearer in the first place. And slowly, Eiro tried to open his eyes again. Because he had been concentrating on this perception of different sense this much, his sight had been heavily influenced as well.

Eiro saw numerous colors floating through the air in the form of ripples, spirals, and simple lines, each of which were the representations of Eiro's other senses that he mixed with his sight.

"Gondos..." Eiro muttered quietly, as white ripples spread out from Eiro's mouth together with lines that soon started to fade after travelling a few meters, which was a mix of Eiro's voice and the breath he used to create it.

The Golem in question slowly pressed himself agianst Eiro's chest, diving right into his body. He changed in a rather weird way, as the Spirit-Fusion mixed with Eiro's water skin. But it didn't matter too much anyway, since Eiro wasn't really moving. Any sort of ripples on Eiro's body were created by the strengthened tremors of the ground that the Demon was sitting on.

But now that Eiro fused with Gondos, he gained another level to his perception. The perception of magic. And all of a sudden, the colors of Eiro's sight shifted. It changed from dark to bright, and from bright to dark, all depending on whether or not there was any sort of magic in that area. He was still able to see everything else perfectly, but the spots that had mana or magic gathered in them were particularly bright and vibrant, basically sticking out to Eiro.

This really was a new level of perception, a kind that Eiro really would have loved to be able to experience earlier. Either way, just seeing this wasn't exactly what Eiro was going for. No, instead, he was actually trying to find something. The puppet had just hidden somewhere within Eiro's property, and the Demon had to find it.

It was tough, much much tougher than it was before, despite the fact that the puppet still only had the same stealth token active. Eiro took a deep breath, spreading more ripples and lines throughout the space around him, and then slowly pushed himself off the ground until he stood on his two legs. He was trying to make sure he would keep this level of concentrated perception up at any point, trying to remember literally everything that he was sensing at the moment. Eiro looked around himself, turning and twisting his body a few times.

And then, he simply started to get moving. Eiro started walking around his property. This was so that Eiro would be able to find the hidden puppet. But actually not only that, but at the same time it was a good way to really figure out if there were any more hidden secrets inside of this place that Eiro was simply unable to find just yet.

After he moved through the outside completely, Eiro stepped into the mansion. With slow and steady steps, Eiro moved through the house, looking at everything that he could while trying not to let his concentration slip.

He saw the hidden rooms he already knew about, the slight flow of mana through the hallways and passages of this mansion, as it was really just a huge static magic circle. But now only that, Eiro also saw the flow of mana inside of the bodies of the children. He let them know that he would be doing this today, because it didn't actively require him to use his body to massive extents, which was good as it felt like his whole body was being ripped apart and put together ten thousand times in one moment.

Eiro thought it would distract him, but this kind of thing actually made him a bit more sensitive to small changes in the air or the minor tremors of the ground. It was pretty useful, really. Somehow, doing this made it possible for Eiro to relax despite the physical aching he was feeling, because that way, the aching actually came in useful someho-

"Yoo, Eiro, come out here!" The voice of Krog echoed out from outside the mansion, causing numerous ripples to cover Eiro's sight while it felt like his eardrums were about to rupture from just this.

The Demon immediately lost his concentration, and for Eiro's and Gondos' safety, the two of them made the choice to split up into two again.

"What the fuck... are those morons doing out there?" Eiro asked with a slight groan as he slowly turned around. He was in the second floor right now, and so he just looked out the window facing in the direction where they were standing while putting his mask on. After all, there was apparently someone else with them, although his mind was a bit too confused to figure out who exactly it was just yet.

And then, Eiro saw here. A woman with dark burgundy-colored hair, wearing an necklace with a bright red stone set into its center.

With a deep groan, Eiro took a deep breath that he used to fill his lungs with air magic that he used to infuse his body. And then, Eiro simply climbed out of the window and jumped, using magic to stop the fall of this illogically light body of his with a strong gust. It stirred up the dust and dirt on the ground around Evelyn, but Eiro didn't really care about that.

"What do you want?" Eiro asked with a deep glare as he stood there, taking his mask off, "I'd prefer to have you leave again as quickly as possible, so let's get to it."

Surprised, or rather, shocked, James and Krog, who were currently the only ones here, as Jess seemingly had some other business to take care of in the urban area of town, "Eiro, what are you doing?" James asked in response to seeing that Eiro simply revealed his demonic face to Evelyn, and Eiro just groaned.

"She already knows." Eiro said, and Krog looked at her with a light stare, "So that means that she's someone close to you?"

"Not at all. She just knows, I don't know how." The demon pointed out. He was rather pissed off about it to be perfectly frank, but there wasn't much he could really do anymore. After his evolution, he hoped to be able to level up a bit so that he could kill her relatively soon. But that would still take a while. Until literally the day before the winter solstice, Eiro would be undergoing evolution.

"I would just like to have you return something that's mine. I heard you killed the spider queen in that monster nest, did you not? Then surely, you must have been the one that stole that special artifact." She pointed out, and Eiro looked at her with a light sigh, before flicking his hand to the side. A moment later, Eiro was holding the metal ball with its carving on the outside, "You mean this?" He asked, and Evelyn simply nodded her head.

"Indeed so. Now please, hand that to me." Evelyn said, extending her hand forward, but Eiro just let go of the metal ball and made it drop back into his treasury.

"Yeah, I don't think so." Eiro replied bluntly, "But it's not like you really came for that anyway, right? You're a horrid liar despite being such a two-faced bitch, Evelyn." The demon grumbled, and the face of the woman right in front of him turned bright red as she opened her eyes wide.

"What are you sa-" She started, but was quickly interrupted by Eiro, "I'm not in the mood for this. That moron just there nearly just killed me with his lungs that are the size of my whole body, I'm in the middle of evolution and I'm in such a huge amount of pain all over, because for whatever reason, my bones and flesh are slowly disintegrating and turning into something different. My head is killing me because my horns are changing their shape as well, and I absolutely do not like you or enjoy your company, so just out with it already." Eiro said with a light growl, and Evelyn looked at Eiro with a wry smile.

"You're just an imp... Who do you think you're talking to..?" She asked, "But fine, have it your way. You're right, I'm not here for that artifact. We have dozens of those. No, I'm here to try and recruit you."

"Eh?" Eiro asked, "I just said I'm not in the mood for this. 'This' includes jokes and blatant stupidity. I'm not joining you, screw off."

"Oh... Is that so..?" Evelyn asked with a quiet tone, "Then I guess I'll just have to resort to force." She pointed out. Evelyn stretched her hands forward and pushed blood out of the tips of her fingers. It was too much blood for a normal person, really. Many times more. The bloodstone probably increased blood-recovery to the extreme. Evelyn turned her blood into spears that she then immediately froze and had float around Eiro.

Meanwhile, the demon just snapped his fingers with his spark-snapper on and created flames that he absorbed into his skin instead of the wind magic. His whole body was giving off high amounts of heat now. Some of the tips of the ice-blood spears were already melting just through this, as Eiro generally tried to pump up the heat as much as he possibly could.

But the moment it started to melt, Evelyn used Magic to reverse it. Seeing this, Eiro just sighed deeply, "Fine. Come in. I really am not in the mood for a fight right now." The Demon pointed out.. He figured he could at least hear her out.