DEMON'S VIRTUE

Eiro stabbed the monstrosity's heart and stared deep into his eyes, and soon saw the notification behind it. At first, it just was the regular damage notification in a language that Eiro didn't understand. It was probably the ancient language though, the symbols seemed similar at the very least.

Either way, as the white, slightly blue blood of the winter monstrosity dripped onto the ground and flowed out of the corners of its mouth, Eiro pushed it down further onto the ground. He pressed its body down with his foot and made sure that it wouldn't be able to move anymore at all without fully damaging its body.

Of course, the whole time, Eiro was staring into the monstrosity's eyes so that he could properly see the notifications that it was seeing as well. This was pretty boring, but it would be over rather quickly. The monstrosity was already about to fall unconscious due to the blood-loss and lack of oxygen in its brain. Eiro kind of wanted to avoid damaging its body too much beyond the singular stab to its chest, since the materials that could be stripped from it were rather useful.

The Demon looked at the figure down below him and then heard steps that caused the snow to crack down behind him, "You have slain it that easily..?" One of the guards asked, and Eiro turned around toward it, "Well, it's not dead yet, but yes. What about it?"

"Oh, nothing, Sir!" The guard exclaimed, not wanting to insult Eiro, and then he awkwardly scratched the side of his cheek, "But that monster is a special kind that appears every year. There should be a couple more of them around here in the forest. I'm glad that we managed to slay one of them before they could gather."

Eiro stared at the man in confusion, "Say what now? There's more of them? How many?"

"Ah, we don't exactly know. They usually start as small creatures... maybe toddler sized? Well, if they end up gathering, and one of them feeds on another one, they grow stronger. We can handle the small ones, but a medium sized one like this is rather troublesome. And they have amazing camouflage during this time of the year."

Eiro slowly rubbed the bridge of his nose and then pulled away his foot from the monstrosity, "Of course, of course it wouldn't be this fucking easy." The Demon grumbled quietly, "And why the fuck are those so far away that I can't even sense them?"

Eiro leaned downward toward the monstrosity that was slowly dying underneath his foot, and then simply used ice magic to patch it up so that it wouldn't be dying anytime soon after all, "Come on, bud. Call them." Eiro suggested with a light glare. He wanted to use this one to call them all together to make it easier for him. Even if they gathered, Eiro should be able to beat them relatively easily using fire magic.

But of course, the guard that just spoke to Eiro had something to say about that as well, "S-Sir, what exactly are you doing? Why do you want it to call the others of its kind?"

"Huh? It's pretty simple-" Eiro started, but before he could finish his sentence, the monstrosity that he was holding by the neck let out a loud screech. It was annoyingly loud to Eiro, but at the very least it seemed to work. Just a few moments after the screech started, Eiro could hear something like 'replies' in the distance, from others of its kind. And soon, he could sense them even normally. They were getting closer, and luckily wouldn't be walking into too many guards and soldiers on the way. It would be a bother if any of them died after Eiro called these monsters here.

Either way, Eiro slowly turned toward the Guard, "As I was saying, it's pretty simple. If we don't kill them this year, they'll come back even stronger next year. As simple as that." The Demon pointed out. And then, he threw the monstrosity he was holding onto into the direction that the others were coming from.

"But really, tough luck, huh? This type of Seasonal Monstrosity is kinda bothersome to deal with." Eiro pointed out, "Would have been better if it had been just a single dumbass that you could have dealt with by using a little bit of your brains." Eiro pointed out, "But if you don't have an overwhelming advantage in strenght, not even a large group of you guys could fight against them and win. That's because their priority isn't to feed on their brothers and grow, but rather to fight enemies. So you would be targeted first and... Hey, are you listening?"

The demon looked at the figure of the guard, who was just staring at the mass of flesh and fur that was forming just a little distance away from Eiro as the monstrosities were gathering. Eiro would like to let these guys know about this. It would be nice if he didn't have to bother with the monstrosities anymore in the future, just because they were extremely fucking annoying to Eiro.

"Oi." Eiro said with a deep frown, once more using his new charisma stat-ability, and the guard turned his eyes toward the Demon immediately, "Good boy. Anyway, right now, they abandoned their priority, which is to fight enemies, because they're aware they can't kill me if they don't combine and grow stronger."

"A-And why would you throw that away?!" The guard asked, "If you can kill them like this, then why would you allow them to get stronger?!"

"Oh..." Eiro muttered, "That's a fair question. Well, if they're like this, they're an easier target. Oh, and the experience I get from killing them is a lot greater as well. If they're all combined, it should be maybe... 20 to 30% more than if I were to kill them invidually? I don't know why, but it probably has to do with how their strength increases illogically as well." The demon explained quickly, and then looked back toward the monstrosity-mass near him.

"And there's something interesting that's created if all of those guys get together. It seems like a good chance to act as an apology for all of you guys being complete and utter morons in the past." Eiro explained. This was the main reaosn, really, although the extra bit of experience wasn't anything to laugh at either.

Now that Eiro thought about it, that this was the kind of monstrosity that appeared here was kind of lucky. Especially considering the strength that it seemed to have. That should make the result pretty great as well.

Either way, Eiro just looked at the figure and made sure that they were all properly combined. Once one last one of the group joined the body of the creature, a pale blue gem appeared on its forehead, framed by its thin, spiky horns.

"Perfect." Eiro said with a smile on his face and approached the monstrosity. With a broad grin, as if it had won now that it got the chance to combine its body with its other parts, it swung its fist toward Eiro again.

Of course, the force and speed was extraordinarily higher than before, but with Eiro's physicality, he was able to dodge the attack rather easily. He jumped to the side and just tried to make the monstrosity attack him a few times so that he would be able to figure out how strong it actually was. Just out of curiosity. Eiro looked at the large humanoid figure. It towered over the demon quite a bit, standing at roughtly twice his height, if not more than that.

It had a fair amount of strength and speed to its movements, but it was at just the right level of intelligence where it wasn't able to act purely on instinct like most monsters, but couldn't properly utilize proper techniques either or tactics either. It was pretty easy to beat this kind with at least a little bit of patience, really.

Eiro continued to dodge, and in the end just jumped up and over the creature's fist. He approached it as quickly as he could and soon stood in front of it. With a quick flick of his wrist, Eiro pulled out his three of swords and activated it, immediately pushing the blades as deep into the monster's chest as possible. He ripped the heart apart a bit to make it die quicker, and then just watched when it collapsed on the ground in front of him.

And now, before it actually did die, Eiro climbed over its body and placed his dagger onto its forehead. He pushed his dagger right under the edge of the gem that had grown on the monstrosity's forehead. It would disappear when it died, so he would need to get it out before then. The Demon carved into the skin a bit, and soon managed to push his fingers underneath the gem so that Eiro could simply pull it out.

And when Eiro was actually holding it in his hands, he looked down at the dagger that was still stuck in the monster's forehead and placed his foot onto the handle, and slowly placed his weight onto it. The dagger slowly slid deeper into its head, and when it reached the skull, Eiro jumped a bit and lifted his leg up a bit. And then just when it was about to hit the handle again, he pushed his foot down with full force as if trying to kick off from there, but in the end he just wanted to push the dagger deeper into the skull.

And it worked perfectly. The skull cracked into pieces and the monster died.

With a satisfied expression, Eiro looked at the notification in front of him.

[Lethal damage done to Fragmented Frost Walker]

[You have leveled up!]

[You have 10 unused stat points]

'Hmm... no increase in my level-up stat points, huh?' The demon thought to himself, slightly disappointedly, but it was really fine in the end. Eiro ran his fingers through the notifications and then looked back at the body of the monstrosity. With quick movements of his hands and his knives, Eiro cut off the creature's horns and claws, and even chose to try and salvage a little bit of the blood. He didn't see this kind of white blood before, so it might have some neat properties.

Hopefully the daughter of winter wouldn't mind, though... Either way, at least he now had a good present for her, in the form of the gem that he was now holding in his hand.

Eiro turned around, and looked at the guards, "Clean the rest up for me, will you?" The demon asked of them, and then slowly made his way toward the clearing where their 'guest' would arrive later.