DEMON'S VIRTUE

Eiro opened up the secret, magically hidden doorway. And beyond it, he could see a few things quite immediately.

He was kind of worried about what was going on down there, with Gobo, Bavet, and the crazy John being trapped there together with a bunch of spider-monsters, but to his surprise... They were doing rather well. John was just lazing around in a cell on the other side of the room, while Gobo was currently cleaning the underbelly of one of the largest spiders that Eiro and Bavet had already sealed the monstrosity of.

It seemed like they had basically made all of the spider monsters that lacked monstrosity their pets. And the moment that the large circular door opened up fully and Gobo and Bavet realized what was going on, they stormed over toward the Demon, although he was still pitch-black and wooden right now. They didn't need to think for even a moment until they realized who stood there and opened the door up.

"Eiro!"

"Master!"

Bavet and Gobo ran up to the Demon, who looked back at the two with a light smile on his face. He patted Gobo's head for a moment as he looked at the two of them, "That's me, I'd assume." The Demon said. It seemed like rather quickly, at the very least Bavet realized part of what was going on. After all, he was with Eiro for a lot of things that were related to Bahlsen and Edward, and since he was a rather intelligent being, the Slime managed to figure out roughly what happened. At the very least, now that they had gotten their memories back, he did. Before then, he was obviously affected just as much as all the others.

"But... What did you mean with that 'I'd assume' just now?" Bavet inquired, and Eiro smiled back bitterly, "You're rather sharp, huh? Basically, I received a Legendary Skill when fighting the Demi-Lich, but when it took effect, the repercussions were that one of my abilities was practically reversed. That ability was the ability related to my perfect memory. Hence, whenever I think about something, I forget everything about that 'something'." Eiro explained quickly to the two of them.

Gobo seemingly didn't really understand what all this meant, but Bavet on the other hand figured it out already, "...Legendary Skill? Excuse me, what? How did you- Just- How?!" The Slime exclaimed, and Eiro shrugged slightly in response, "I don't know, I don't remember. Oh, and also..." Eiro started as he waved his hand to the side.

Right next to him, bubbles of water gathered and formed Nelli. Then next to her, dust gathered and formed Gondos. And at last, sparks gathered and formed Sarius, "I formed a contract with another Spirit. Meet Sarius." The Demon said, and the Salamander looked at the Hobgoblin and the Slime with a wry smile on his face, "Oi, the hell are these two? Your pets or something?"

"Hm... Something like that, I'd say." Eiro said with a confused expression himself as he looked at the two of them. He didn't remember everything about them, so a question like this was somewhat hard to answer for the Demon.

Bavet wasn't all that happy about being called a pet, though, "Who're you calling a pet, you son of a bitch?"

"Son of a bitch? Me? I'm the future King. Bow to me, you dirty peasant." Sarius scoffed. Bavet wasn't sure if he fully understood what this Spirit just said, so he turned toward the Demon next to him, "The future King? What does that..."

"Right, sorry, I forgot. I received a blessing from the Salamander King, and he referred Sarius to me. He's going to take over the position of Salamander King at some point."

"Don't forget that I'm awesome and super strong."

"Mhm, he also can't control his own abilities properly, which is the reason that the Salamander King asked me to form a contract with Sarius in particular.

Eiro looked back at them, but as he was doing so, it was getting quite hard for the Demon to properly keep his eyes open. It was probably because Eiro did a lot of physically and mostly mentally exhausting things ove the past few days that he was unable to keep himself awake despite his exhaustion resistance skill.

"I think I should head off to the tower now... I need to sleep..."

"Hm? Why would you go to the tower for that?" Gobo asked, as Eiro slowly walked through the room so that he could lock the cell that John was napping in so that he couldn't escape once he woke up.

"The legendary skill took effect again today. This time, my holy energy resistance skill was reversed like that. Any amount of Holy energy might kill me. So, I'm hiding out in the tower while infusing everything with this wood while I'm in there." The Demon said, pointing at his own body as he spoke to the two monsters in this room.

He stepped back outside and looked at Bavet, "I'll be there for a week. If there's an emergency, you may come speak to me. Otherwise, everyone should keep to themselves while I'm up there."

"...Right..." Bavet said somewhat nervously. But Eiro just looked back at him and smiled, "Don't worry. If I have to, I'll be right there. Let's just try to avoid any situations where you might have to rely on me for a week, alright?"

The Slime slowly shook its body in understanding instead of shaking its head, which it in its current form simply didn't have. And so, with a loud yawn, Eiro made his way out of this room and chose to make his way upstairs to see the others again one more time before not doing so for a whole week.

He sat down with them at the table they were at for a while, and just spoke to them. Eiro made sure to reassure them that everything was going to be alright.

In the end, Eiro didn't actually know if everything was going to be alright. All that he knew was that he would probably forget a few things more, including smaller, less important things about his children. Of course, generally, to Eiro everything about the children was incredibly important, but if he had to choose, he would prefer to forget things that were more external. Things that he would be able to remember, or at least rediscover, really quickly. So Eiro tried his best to only focus on the children's appearance, if he needed to focus on them at all.

Otherwise, he would listen to their words in as neutral a way as possible and then answer by speaking to the room instead of them individually. So that Eiro could make sure he really forgot only the absolute minimum about his children, the minimum that was hard for him to avoid.

But the good thing was that in just a few more days, thjs shifted, reversed ability would end, so Eiro would be able to speak to the others through the door of the tower-room he was going to head into later on.

"Are you sure you're going to be alright, all alone up there?" Jess asked with a concerned tone, and Eiro nodded his head, "I'm sure. Don't worry, I won't die from loneliness." The Demon replied.

And then, Sammy looked at the Demon as well, speaking in a mixutre of concern for Eiro as well as selfish worrying for herself, "Do you... Think you're going to be able to remember us when you come back out?"

"...I'm going to try my best, yes. I doubt that I will lose many memories in there, And if at all, they would be memories of myself lazing around in there without any consequence, and that's nothing to really worry about at all. But... I won't be able to easily remember the things I've already forgotten. I will try my bests to go for that as soon and as quickly as I can, but I can't make any promises about how quickly I can regain my memories after this in reality."

Sammy looked back at Eiro with a bitter expression, still upset at the fact that she let herself forget about him like that. Eiro already tried to explain to her that there was no way that she could have remembered him under any circumstances, but she still was quite negative in this regard.

But, at some point, everything that had to be said was said, and everything that had to be asked was asked. Eiro slowly stood up and nervously made his way through the house, followed by the others.

The Demon walked up the stairs of the tower until he reached the top. He opened up the secret, hidden door, or rather 'hatch' in this particular case, and climbed into the room. From in there, he made sure to speak to the others a little more, before then finally closing the hatch for good for the whole of next week, if possible.

The first thing that the Demon did, of course, was to slowly stop his infusion, pulling everything back into a small wooden piece on his hand. He was surprised that this small piece of wood wqas enough to infuse his whole body at first, but considering how powerful this was, maybe this was natural for this sort of material.

But the moment that he did this... Eiro felt burns all over his body as it started to loudly hiss. His body became hard to move around, and it felt like he would soon catch fire if he didn't do anything against that in particular.

So, instantly, Eiro infused the room with this particular material, with all of this 'Unholy Magic' that was stuck inside of that small piece of wood. Slowly but surely, the burning and hissing disappeared as the Holy Energy was properly disposed of duje to the Unholy Energy.

With a deep breath, the Demon tried to inhale as much of this Energy as possible to get rid of any last speck of Holy Energy inside of his body as he slowly started to heal from the burn-wounds he had just received from the Holy Energy.

"...Was that just ambient Holy Energy, or did this come from Avalin having stood in front of this room for just a moment..?" The Demon muttered quietly, unsure about which of these two possibilities it really was in the end.

"Well, it doesn't matter, really. I just need to wait out... for a whole week." Eiro muttered quietly, before he laid down on his back in this room. He had set it up so that the space would perpetually be in this 'Unholy State'.. And basically the moment that he had the chance to, Eiro closed his eyes and fell unconscious due to exhaustion.