DEMON'S VIRTUE

"You want to be strong?" Eiro asked, looking Charles deep into his eyes. Nervously, the young man nodded his head, not sure about what Eiro was going to say to him now.

"Then start with finishing feeding your sapling your mana every day. Once you do that and there's enough wood to make prosthetics out of it, you'll have limbs that will literally act as staffs do, meaning you'll be able to cast magic using them. That alone is quite an upgrade compared to your current state." The Demon pointed out bluntly, "And after that, instead of practicing in here, go look at some spellbooks that your school offers to you, or just the ones that you have here in the castle, and keep on practicing. Increase your skill levels, and you will naturally become stronger."

Charles nervosity disappeared as he realized that Eiro didn't offer him any sort of 'miracle method' to become stronger instantly. Something like that didn't exist, and if it did, Eiro would be using it as well. At the end of the day, even though the Demon's growth was accelerated considerably due to the fact that he got extremely lucky a lot of the time, his actual growth still just comes from doing the basics. Practicing, learning, and slowly becoming better at the things that he wants to do.

Seeing that Charles was somewhat disappointed, Eiro let out a slight sigh, "Don't worry, I know you have something special about you. The world doesn't take away without giving something in return. You've suffered a lot because of your incredibly low rate of healing, but that is something you were born with. A condition you had ever since you were born. It isn't some sort of disease or curse in itself. That means that you are more powerful in another way, to balance out that which was taken from you with your low healing. You just have to be patient until you find that thing you are good at."

"...Are you sure?" Charles asked, and Eiro nodded his head, "Of course I am. Now, come on. Go to the gardens and feed your sapling already before it dies off." The Demon said as he stood up, and the young prince lightly smiled, somewhat more reassured, as he left the room and started making his way to the gardens, like Eiro asked him to.

"Poor kid, though. You're a piece of shit so I'm kinda sure you deserved losing your hand, but a kid like that..." Bavet said, as he was still currently fused with Eiro, and the Demon groaned loudly as he heard the slime's voice in his ear, "You know I can still kill you whenever I want, right? Especially now that we can replicate Ariella's artifact."

"...So, how about that seal on Solomon's memories, eh?" Bavet asked, trying to change the topic. Eiro rolled his eyes and replied, "What about it?"

"Well, we didn't remove it yet. Did that dragon dude do it instead?"

"No, of course not, Lognir can't unseal things like that. He could probably do it with low-tier seals, but not one that's that strong. If Solomon's memories had simply been manipulated, he would have remembered everything by now, but seals are different." Eiro pointed out, "Also, why am I the one explaining that to you? You're the sealing-arts expert here."

"Yeah, but I don't know how that dragon's powers work." The slime pointed out, while Eiro just made his way through the halls of the castle, so that he could get out of here for now. Although Bavet did have a point. It was taking rather long for all the materials to arrive here. Bavet had concluded that a few rare types were needed in order to unseal Solomon's memories, and Solomon was going to order them, but Eiro didn't really hear anything about those things anymore.

To be fair, Eiro had a lot of other things to take care of lately, so he couldn't be blamed for just not thinking about it all that much.

Well, they would unseal Solomon's memories when they had everything they needed, either way. For now, Eiro had to concentrate on something else, though.

There was going to be a test during class tomorrow, and Eiro still didn't finish preparing all the questions.

---

"Eiro, can you come out for a moment?" A muffled, exhausted voice asked from the other side of the door. The Demon raised his head, "Why should I come out, just come in, James. The door is unlocked."

"...I can't... Breathe..." James muttered, hunched over. Eiro groaned loudly as he stood up and approached the door. The Light Elf stood there with a pale face, clearly struggling to stay upright in front of Eiro.

The Demon rolled his eyes and swung his tail around, hitting it against James' solar plexus. At the same time, Eiro grabbed the mask James was wearing and slightly pulled it off his face, while also pushing some magic into the elf's chest.

And just like that, James' lungs lost all the air that they held just a few moments ago. But of course, Eiro swiftly used air magic to make sure that James' body calmed down and that he received new air, before placing the mask back onto his face.

"Better?" Eiro asked, and James stared back at the Demon. He was about to yell out in anger, when he realized that he was actually quite alright, despite his expectations.

"What did you just do?"

"I reset your breathing, that's what. You're straining yourself too much to try and keep up with the changes of the mask. But what you have to do is just try to act casual about it. Breath as if you weren't even wearing it in the first place. Now, is there something else?" The Demon asked, and James scratched the back of his head.

"Well, I just wanted to ask how long you think we'll have to continue this sort of training... It doesn't feel like any of us made any progress. Sure, Jess' mana did rise a bit, and so did my health, but not by all that much." James pointed out, "This just feels useless."

"You've been doing this for a couple of weeks, what do you expect?" Eiro asked, but James clearly couldn't help himself.

"Listen here, dickhead, I know we've had our differences, but at this point, I thought we were at least comrades in some sense. What, do you want us to be nothing but pawns to play around with when you're bored? What use are we gonna be if we're not strong enough to even kill the scraps you leave behind?" James asked with a deep glare, and Eiro crossed his arms, "One more week. After that, I'll give you guys a bit more of an explanation."

"One week? And what, in that time you'll have gotten another ten legendary skills, and the gap between us will grow?"

Eiro looked back at James, and rubbed the bridge of his nose, "Fine. You don't want to wait any longer? Then gather up Krog and Jess and wait out in the training area. But just remember, you're the one that wanted this, so don't complain about the consequences."

"Don't worry, I won't." James replied in a clear voice, while Eiro turned back around and entered his study. He would just quickly finish up writing the questions for the test tomorrow before heading down.

And while he was doing so, his three contracted spirits appeared right next to him, "What exactly are you planning on doing now? You never really told any of us."

"I'm going to go through with the next part of those guys' training, like James wants me to." Eiro pointed out bluntly, clearly quite pissed off. Nelli looked back at the Demon, "I know that you're trying to make them actually useful to you, but if they aren't strong enough, why are you even bothering? Just let them fend for themselves. You don't really need them anymore anyway."

Eiro put down his pen and looked up at the Naiad, "Because, believe it or not, they belong to my 'circle' now. I care about them, and I don't just want to leave them to die. And of course, in case anything goes wrong in the future, I need people to be here that can protect the kids."

"Don't you think they'll be able to protect themselves somehow?"

"Probably, but I don't want to risk it." Eiro said as he finished writing down the last question. And then, he quickly stood up and walked over to the side of the room and grabbed his armor, swiftly donning it. The Demon walked up to the window and quickly jumped out of it, catching himself with his wings. Soon, he reached the training area, where the others were already waiting for him.

Eiro stood in front of all of them, and crossed his arms, "As I understand it, you guys think you're falling a bit behind?"

Krog and Jess turned toward James, who was unwavering as he stared back at Eiro.

"Don't worry, I can't blame you. I am growing at a rather insane rate. So, we're going to move on to the next step instead. Surprisingly, Charles also asked me for a way to become stronger as quickly as possible today, but I didn't tell him of this method. Because he's still basically just a kid. But you guys aren't. So, tell me. Do you guys think you have what it takes to do this? The answer would have been clearer if you had gone through this whole regime as I asked you to, but now, it's not just as clear."

"Just... What is it you want us to do?" Jess asked nervously, and Eiro shook his head, "I won't tell you yet. Before then, I need to know.. Are you guys prepared to lay down your life in case you mess up during this? And remember, I know if you're telling the truth or not."