DEMON'S VIRTUE

"What's going on exactly? Were you able to evolve like regular monsters?" Eiro asked the two spirit-type undead. They turned toward each other and then looked back at the Demon confused.

"What do you mean? Of course we could?" Mikey replied, and Eiro let out a deep sigh, "That means that you two received multiple options for your possible evolutions, and you were able to pick which one to go for yourselves?"

"Yeah, is that not supposed to happen?" Ariella, or Ari, asked. She looked at Eiro somewhat nervously, since it was clear that something was wrong.

"Not really, no. But it's not a bad thing, don't get me wrong. I'm just... confused." Eiro muttered. This was the first time that he himself had 'created' a monster in the form of an undead. Could it maybe be because of his Legendary skill? He had no idea, since he was unable to really learn anything about this skill.

As he was unable to really make use of it, it was practically sealed away at this point. Also because Eiro didn't want to accidentally strengthen his skills and cause some kind of incident again once it became reversed. But he only did that a bit after he created Mikey and Ari. The skill did have the ability to strengthen things, so maybe it somehow strengthened this process in some way. That was the only thing that Eiro figured made sense.

Sure, spirit-type undead were very different to corpse-type undead, but that didn't change that they should only be able to really function under the influence of their necromancer, which in this case was Eiro himself. It was confusing, really.

"Or maybe it was the fact that I used a magic stone?" He muttered. Eiro had no idea, but he definitely wanted to find out. Maybe he should ask Koperia about this as well. She might know something.

"Do we have to be worried or somethin'?" Mikey asked as he floated around Eiro, but the Demon quickly shook his head, "No, you don't need to be worried. I've got to figure this out myself. But on another note..." Eiro said to change the topic to something else. He didn't want the others here to know just how perplexed he really was about this situation.

"Ariella, do you perchance know someone else with the same name as you?" He asked next, and the white undead quickly shook her head, or rather her whole body, "No, I don't think so. I've never met anyone with the same name, at least."

"Well, that's technically true, but not really, right?" Mikey pointed out, and Ariella looked confused, before realizing what her brother meant, "Oh, right! Mom and dad told me that they named me after a woman that saved them while mom was pregnant! They said she was super pretty, and that she was basically an angel!"

"...Right, of course." Eiro rubbed the bridge of his nose, "Yeah, that would explain it, at least. I guess I'll just ask her if she remembers..."

"Wait, do you know who it is?" Ari asked excitedly. Eiro raised his head, just to see the Will'o'wisp floating only inches away from his face.

"Yes, I do. At least I think I do, from that description. Ariella is a rare name in the first place." Eiro pointed out. Well, that was something that Eiro figured he had to deal with first, since it was killing him not to know why they both had this rare name. Although, it was also quite a coincidence that Eiro encountered this young girl of all people back then...

But that wasn't important right now. Instead, he should focus on the central things he came here for.

"Gobo, call Boju and Kitsue here as well. I want to speak to the three of you about something." Eiro said, and the Hobgoblin immediately nodded, "Of course, Master!" With the same level of excitement Gobo had as always when doing something Eiro asked him to do, he rushed off to go find the Highland Orc and Kitbold.

Meanwhile, Eiro took a look at this structure. It was fairly large, as if it was supposed to be some form of gathering-hall. It had multiple floors, and reached surprisingly deep into the mountain. Deeper inside, Eiro could even see some proper storage-spaces filled with materials gathered from other monsters, provisions, as well as all of the processed metals and magic stones mined here.

They did a really good job. The addition of the Highland Orcs really did wonders for this village. Eiro took a seat on one of the chairs in what seemed to be something like a meeting-room. There were a dozen or so seats around a large wooden table, and one of the chairs was carved in a rather impressive way. And obviously, Eiro sat down on that chair as he waited.

Just a few minutes later, Gobo returned to this room and had Boju and Kitsue right beside him, "Here they are!"

"Thank you. Please, take a seat, I have something to talk about." Eiro said, greeting the two other monsters as well.

"Now. Just a few days ago, I was given a noble title by the king of this country. Together with that noble title came a few responsibilities and tasks I had to take care of. In exchange, I now have actual ownership of this mountain-range. For now, I need to take a few monsters with me to the capital to act as servants for me there." Eiro explained to them briefly. He didn't go into too much detail about the 'baron' title, since literally none of them knew what it meant. Only Mikey and Ari were surprised.

"Wait, a noble title? What'd you mean?" One of them asked, and Eiro smiled at them, "Solomon named me a Baron the other day, because I managed to kill 'The Death'." He explained, before turning his head toward Kitsue, Gobo and Boju again.

"For you three, 'The Death' is a royal monster, one of the most powerful monsters that directly 'serves' the Monster King." Eiro explained, and the three immediately became excited.

"Ooh~! How expected of our master~!" Kitsue exclaimed, followed by Boju right after, "Th-That is really impressive! I think I read about royal monsters in one of the books you left!"

"Yeah, one of them was speaking aobut them in a chapter. If you're interested, I can bring some more next time." Eiro explained, before he moved his hand to the side. He moved his hand like he was pulling a book out of a shelf, before a leatherbound notebook appeared between in his clutch.

He opened it up and slid it over the table toward Boju, as he was the most likely to be taking care of administrative matters like this.

"Those are positions I need filled, ranked in priority. The first number in front of each line is the number that I need to take with me this time around, and the second number beside that is the total amount I will need. But I will only take the amount for the first number with me. If there is no number in a line, then I won't take anyone to fill that position." Eiro explained, "Did you keep a list of all the monsters in this village with their respective general skill-set, just as I asked you to?"

"Of course! I have it in the thick notebook you gave me. I will put together the group of monsters that will come with you immediately!" Boju exclaimed, ready to go get the monsters right this very moment. But Eiro slightly raised his hand and shook his head, "No, stay. That's not the only thing I wanted to talk about." He explained in a serious tone, making the three monster chiefs rather nervous.

"I'm really happy with how the village looks right now. The monsters all look happy, and it seems quite peaceful. However, there is an issue. Some of them are still incredibly aggressive. They're kept on the other end of this ravine, in what is basically a slum. I don't want that. Do not, I repeat, do not do something like that long-term." Eiro told them in a commanding tone so that they understood, and Gobo immediately grew nervous.

"But Master, what else should we do? If we don't split them off from the rest of us, they're going to just attack us. It puts the other monsters on edge!" Gobo explained, and Eiro slightly smiled, "Don't worry, I'm not judging you for it right now. I understand why you did it, and at the end of the day, I think you did the right thing. But now, you don't have to do that." Eiro explained.

"In my carriage, I have some items for you that Armodeus created with Bavet's help. Basically, they're made partially out of Bavet himself, focused on his Sealing-Arts ability." Eiro explained, and the Slime grumbled quietly as he dropped down onto the table. With a hissing voice, he said, "Exactly, so don't take it for fucking granted, will ya?! It's really damn umcomfortable to split parts of your body off in that way..."

"Anyway. They're Magic Items, technically inspired by 'Taming Collars', the items used to enslave creatures as a shortcut instead of properly taming them." Eiro explained. He still had his own in his treasury, so Armodeus was able to quickly copy parts of it for this. Gobo's body immediately froze up at the mention of that concept, slowly moving his hand toward the back of his neck, "You want to turn the aggressive monsters of this village into slaves?"

"That's kinda..." Kitsue added with a wry smile, and Eiro immediately clarified.

"Of course I don't want to turn them into slaves. However, those collars have the ability to suppress monstrosity of monsters as well. Temporarily, the monsters that have too high monstrosity will wear these." Eiro explained, pulling one of them out of his satchel.

It was a wooden ring, large enough to fit around someone's neck, "Just to make it clear, these will not make monsters lose their own mind, and these will not put anyone under the control of anyone else. It is rather the opposite. It frees them from the monstrosity that is clouding their mind, so that they can make their own decisions. After all, we can't be here to seal and unseal their monstrosity all the time ourselves. Instead, you will put this on them, and on a weekly basis will go into a room with them alone. You will take this wooden collar off of them. It should take half an hour or so until they return to 'normal', meaning that the effect of the collar will have fully faded, at which point I will let you judge whether they can stay within the main-community without it. If you think they still need some time, you put the collar back on them, and call them back a week later." Eiro explained to them, especially Gobo.

"Again, this is just something that they will have to wear temporarily. You don't want to see your people killing each other, do you?"