DEMON'S VIRTUE

Eiro looked back at the Kitbold in front of him, before turning toward the Hobgoblins that were still bowing to the Demon from next to the throne, "You four, explain the situation to me."

"Hey, don't ignore Kitsue, you-"

"Silence, moggy." Eiro glared at the Kitbold in front of him, and she seemed to immediately feel the pressure coming off of the Demon, trying to jump backward because of it. But it seemed like the pressure Eiro gave off was too strong for her, and her whole body had tensed up so that the Kitbold wasn't even able to move a muscle.

Vent, the wind-mage Hobgoblin, was the one to speak up. Eiro figured that he had the highest Common Language Comprehension level out of the monsters here, with the exception possibly being this Kitbold herself, "I am sorry, Master. This enemy intruded two weeks ago... Took over the village. We tried to chase her away. But she was too strong..."

Eiro looked the Kitbold Kitsue up and down for a few moments. Sure, she seemed to be fairly strong compared to the other monsters here, but he couldn't imagine that she was all that strong, honestly. With an annoyed sigh, Eiro stepped over toward the rough throne that had been constructed, the place where Kitsue had been sitting up until a few moments ago.

The Demon sat down on it and let his head rest on his hand, "Oi, moggy. Gather up the mutts." Eiro commanded in a growling voice, and Kitsue slowly turned her head toward him, "H-Ho-How dare you speak to-to Kitsue l-like that! I will ki-kill yo-"

"Don't make me repeat myself." The Demon added, and the Kitbold flinched back and nearly fell to the ground out of sheer fear. She turned around and ran away, seemingly trying to gather up the few Kobolds that weren't already gathered here anyway. Of course, all of the Goblins had already come to this place due to the return of their master.

They stepped to the side to let the Kobolds move to the front of the group so that they would have a perfect sight of Eiro, who slowly extended his hand toward the chains that were placed around the two female Hobgoblins. With relative ease, he managed to shatter them apart. There were already a few cracks in it, not enough to break by hand for the Hobgoblins, but enough to push some seeds in there and let them crack the chains into pieces before being burnt away by Eiro's flames, making it seem like he shattered them with nothing but a touch.

Of course, if Eiro had tried to, he could have broken the chains just by pulling on them, but that seemed like it would still take a little while. This was something that he managed to do within just a few moments, so he chose to go with this method instead.

And then, as the metal chunks fell to the ground, Eiro turned his attention back onto the Kobolds and the singular Kitbold, who were all standing there rather confused, "All of you. Bow." Eiro commanded.

Without hesitation, all of the Goblins did as they were told. After all, this command had been deeply ingrained into them by now.

The only ones that were still standing there were the Kobolds and the Kitbold. And Eiro didn't particularly like that.

"Did you not hear me?" The Demon asked in an anger-filled voice, one that should be able to be conveyed to the Kobolds and the Kitbold properly. But to make sure that they truly understood him, Eiro did something else as well.

He summoned his Grimoire and flipped it open to the pages he had prepared for Gravity Magic as he held his right hand forward toward the Monsters in question. He immediately started to create the magic circle from the page he had just opened, using the Gravity Magic from the small purple magic stone to cause this effect.

And then, he activated it just as he finished his sentence, "I told you all to bow."

Immediately, immense gravity that they didn't expect in the slightest pushed down onto the Kobolds, forcing them onto their knees. At this point, they had understood what Eiro told them, and were bowing to the Demon now.

"Good. To make it clear, even if you all had a bit of fun over the past two weeks, that is over now. Give me a good reason why I shouldn't just slaughter you Kobolds now and use you for provisions."

Kitsue slowly tried to raise her head to look at Eiro with a fearful expression, "N-No, don't kill us! Kitsue is sorry! Our village was destroyed, and we looked for new place! Found this!"

Eiro glared back annoyedly. A Kobold village was destroyed, huh?

"Who attacked you, then?" Eiro inquired, and the Kitbold looked down at the ground with a face filled with pure hatred, "Pigs! Big, fat pigs!"

"Do you mean Orcs?" Kitsue immediately nodded her head in response to Eiro's question. He hadn't heard about Orcs living in this area. Then, he looked at Kitsue herself as well as the Kobolds. Judging from their builds, claws, and the thickness of their fur, Eiro came to a simple conclusion.

These Kobolds and the Kitbold used to live in a village that was rather high up within the mountains. Judging from their bodies, they were more than just adept at climbing and had grown used to cold climates and extreme winds. And if that was the case, then there was only one species of Orc that might have attacked them.

"Highland Orcs..." Eiro muttered quietly, until he realized what that would mean. And with a slight grin on his face, he whispered to himself, "This might actually be a pretty interesting combination..."

Just as he thought that, he watched as the caravan of carts with the carriage in the front arrived here in this area. Of course, the Goblins and Kobolds were quite surprised to see all these huge spiders here, but Eiro was able to make sure that they didn't attack each other or anything like that.

Gobo looked around at all of the Kobolds and the single Kitbold that was there, "Master, what happened here?" He asked, obviously quite angry about what all this was hinting at, and the Demon quickly explained the situation.

"...So they were going to seek refuge, but instead just took this place over instead?" Gobo asked. Eiro looked back at him and slowly nodded. The Hobgoblin slowly turned his head and glared at Kitsue angrily, "Then I know what I have to do. Master, you understand as well, right?"

"Of course. Knock yourself out, bud." Eiro said with a light smile on his face, "Although, it's getting rather late. How about we rest for tonight, and you fight her in the morning instead? It would give us time to settle in a bit, set the 'arena' up, and let you catch up with these four some more."

Kitsue stared back at Eiro confused. She had been staring up at Gobo the whole time until now, but after hearing that these two were supposed to fight, she had become a bit nervous, and maybe a bit agitated, "Fight? This Goblin doesn't stand a chance against Kitsue! Red Goblin, when Kitsue kills this one, make Kitsue your mate!"

"Hm? Are you an idiot?" Eiro replied, unamused. Because of his quick laugh in response to Gobo's request just now, she must have loosened up a bit again, "Listen here, Moggy. Let me tell you three things. One, I'm a Demon, not a Goblin. Two, you hold no power here. We will not 'bet' on this. We are not equals. You are nothing but a mere bug to me. And three..." the Demon started.

"If you truly think you will be able to beat Gobo, then you must be a bigger idiot than I thought you were. He's not as strong as me, clearly, but if he wanted to, he could probably slaughter everyone in this village now, and still finish before I finish preparing dinner." Eiro could see the hairs on Kitsue's body stand up as she became scared in response to the Demon's words.

But well, that didn't matter to him at all for now. Instead, he tried to start organizing everything. He already looked at the state of the village while he walked over here, so he managed to get a good look at how the Kobolds changed things, "Now. All of the Goblins will take back their original housing from before the Kobolds intruded. And the Kobolds will split up the leftover housing or create their own where they won't bother anyone else. If you need my help creating housing, I will use magic to make this possible, but don't bother me if it's unnecessary." Eiro started as he turned around.

With a wave of his hand, the hidden cave opened up as Eiro got rid of the wall with earth magic. It was the cave where the group had slept in last time they were here. It seemed like a good enough place to stay this time around as well.

Gobo was the first one to go in there, trying to calm his anger, and was quickly followed by the other four Hobgoblins. Eiro would let those guys catch up for now while he himself took care of things for now. The Demon already knew a good place to keep the spiders at least semi-permanently, as well as a place to keep the horses and the carriage temporarily.

Using earth-magic, Eiro created hollow areas inside of the valley's walls and sent the different spiders in there, as if he was creating what was basically a 'nest' for them.

Meanwhile, the Goblins were helping out with unloading the carts according to Nelli and Sarius' instructions, while Gondos helped Eiro create the places for the spiders to stay.

And right by Eiro's side stood Armodeus, who was seemingly quite overwhelmed at this situation.

"So many Goblins and Kobolds... and they're relatively civilized, somehow?"

"Hm? Ah, yeah, but that's honestly mainly because I scare the shit out of them. The Goblins are basically perfectly under control by now, especially because Gobo is here, but the Kobolds are an issue. I would like to train the Kitbold to start behaving to make it easier to control the Kobolds though. They would be pretty good for patrolling and hunting around here. And it seems like some of them would be pretty good at caring for fields around here already." The Demon explained, "And if we can get the Highland Orcs here as well, we're going to have pretty good craftsmen here too, huh?"

"Did...." Armodeus muttered, surprised and curious, "Did you just say 'Highland Orcs'?"