DEMON'S VIRTUE

"Noble? Doesn't something like that come with... responsibilities and stuff? And most importantly, land? I don't want to bother with that at all." Eiro pointed out with a wry smile, and Solomon slightly smiled back at his friend, "Yes, it does come with responsibilities, but not any more than right now. Being a teacher at the academy right now, and then afterward I assume you will win the tournament and become a companion of the hero. That mostly covers any responsibilities you will have."

"...And what about the land bit?" Eiro asked with his arms crossed, happy that he won't receive any particular duties, and Solomon proceeded to grin a bit, "I already thought about that. The title you will receive is that of a 'Baron', and I'm pretty sure you'll like the barony I chose for you. Also, don't worry, but the county that the barony is in luckily belongs to a close, trusted aide of mine. He is a good man, and his family is actually one of the few that know of the skyhart line's bloodline skill."

"What's the land, then?"

"I chose a particular one for you, one without any villages. There might be people there every once in a while, but mostly, they just travel through there instead." Solomon explained, "It's the mountain range that your small 'monster village' is in. You can do anything you want there, change the accessible routes to ensure people can't find that place and so that you can increase the size of it at will. And there are quite a few interesting hunting grounds there as well. Some adventurers will try and go there because of it, so you might have to deal with that, but otherwise it seems like the perfect place for you, right?"

"Heh, yeah, it sure does." Eiro said with a grin, although Solomon still had something else to say.

"However... At this point, you can no longer avoid getting a few servants, you see? But that will be rather troublesome with the state of your manor right now." Solomon explained, "We can find some people that are especially trustworthy that wouldn't tell anyone of your secrets."

"No." Eiro replied bluntly, "We won't be getting people as my servants. I managed to get my hands on the method of creating artificial artifacts, as well as a non-card artifact that can disguise monsters as people. And I have a place filled with monsters that are already especially subservient to me. I just need to pick some with the best stat and skill setup to be servants."

"You understand that 'servants' also means a handful of knights and other soldiers? You can get away with having them be your direct followers instead of having to give them land on their own, though."

Eiro let out a bit of a sigh, "That so? Well, figures. Guess I'll ask Armodeus to make some armor and weapons for them, then."

"You will also need someone to design a coat of arms for you."

"...Is there anything else?"

"Of course. We can wait a bit for that, but we shouldn't wait too long, to decide on a family name for you. Being a baron, you also need a middle name, although we can spare your children from that for now. If they want to have a middle name, there is nothing to speak against that, of course." Solomon said, as he started walking around the room, "But then, there is also on more thing... We need to announce you to the public as well sometime soon. We could avoid that if you so wished, but publicly announcing that you killed 'The Death' will also help your promotion in the adventurer's guild."

"That does sound like a good plan, yeah. But won't it appear a bit weird if a noble still actively works as an adventurer?"

"Of course not! There are plenty of lesser nobles working as adventurers. Especially if they became nobles through their work as adventurers. The nobles will mutter about it amongst themselves, but they will do that anyway." Solomon pointed out, "There is little reason not to name you a noble, Eiro. I can only see advantages. For both of us."

Eiro stood up from the couch and nodded his head, "Fine. But give me some time to fly to my house and pick up Bavet. I can't particularly show my face as it is right now, after all."

"I shall prepare everything we need! Is an hour or two long enough for you to get ready?" Solomon asked, weirdly excited in his tone, and Eiro nodded his head as he walked up to the door to quickly leave, "It should be long enough. I should be back by then." The Demon placed his mask onto his face and walked through the halls of the castle, past the mingling nobles and their retainers, before eventually reaching the outside again. In a place where nobody could see him, Eiro spread out his wings and jumped off the ground, flying to his castle.

He could see that James and Krog were outside to train right now, so the Demon landed right by their side. They stopped what they were doing and looked at Eiro intensely. They could see that his armor was damaged, and that there was a bit of dry blood on it here and there.

And then, Eiro took off his mask and revealed his broad grin, "And that's two royals down."

"Holy fucking shit..!" Krog exclaimed, "You're fucking awesome, dude!"

"Thanks. But I actually can't stay too long. I have to clean the armor a bit, and then leave with Bavet again." Eiro explained, as he started making his way toward the steps into the building, "I'll explain everything that happened tomorrow."

"Wait, why do you have to leave again? You should rest a bit, right? You're injured!" James exclaimed, and Eiro laughed, "Don't worry, I'm not going into battle. Solomon is going to name me a Baron tonight, and the fact that I killed 'The Death' will be publicly announced in a few days."

James and Krog looked at each other perplexed, as Eiro kept walking, "So you two better train a shitton to get stronger. If we're going to be an S-Rank party, I can't be the only one with a reputation."

Eiro stepped up into his home, and in the sitting room, his children were already gathered. The older ones only, of course, the others were already sleeping. It was a bit late, but they were most likely just waiting for Eiro to come back, no matter how long it ended up taking.

And the moment that their father stepped through the door, the five of them, including Felix, jumped up and ran over to Eiro.

"Dad! Is everything alright? Did you..." Sammy asked immediately, and Eiro just smiled at the kids, "Of course I did. Did you ever think I would fail?" The Demon hugged the children and let out a slight sigh, before speaking in a serious tone, "Just that I've got something else to do. And I need your help with it this time."

The children looked at each other nervously, and with a dedicated expression turned to their father, "Alright... Whatever it is, we'll do it." Arc said bluntly. Eiro was a bit proud that they didn't even hesitate until they reached that answer, but luckily, they wouldn't need to do anything bad.

"Since you are the ones that chose my name for me, I need you to do the same for my middle name, and our new last name for when we become a noble household later today. You can take your time, the official ceremony probably won't happen for another few days, but we still can't wait too long."

The expressions of the children went blank, while Felix was freaking out, unsure if he read Eiro's lips correctly.

"Did you just say we're gonna be a noble... a noble household?" Rudy asked with a wry smile, slowly getting excited. The same thing happened to Clementine. But Sammy and Arc, who both grew up in a noble household until they were sold off due to their unique skills, were more nervous than excited. And Eiro could tell that they were.

"Don't worry, nothing will change. I'll just become a baron, and you four, and Avalin and Leon, will get honorary titles. You'll get a last name, and you will have an easier time getting whatever job you want to get in the future, but beside that, nothing will change for you. People might talk about you at school a bit more, though. We're already living the life of nobles anyway, we just weren't an official noble-family.

Arc let out a deep breath, "You're right. And you won't change through just a noble title anyway. Technically, you're already a noble, just a monster noble... And soon you'll be a royal... This shit's confusing, man."

"It sure is..." Clementine nodded in agreement, before looking at Eiro, "But does that mean we'll have to go to other nobles' parties now?"

Eiro looked back at his daughter and thought about it for a moment, before realizing that Solomon left out an important part of being a noble, "That goddamn bastard..." With a loud groan, Eiro rubbed the bridge of his nose, "We'll probably be fine if we don't attend, but we might get a bunch of invitations anyway. You can go if you guys want to, we'll just have to buy you guys some nicer clothes than what you have now. Something that shows that you're part of a noble family."

"But for now...." Sammy said, "We should think of a really cool name for this family!"