DEMON'S VIRTUE

Eiro was walking through town, pulling the attention of the people toward him. He was in his 'famous' disguise right now, after all. And it wasn't like it was impossible for people to have this sort of appearance, but it was rather seldom anyway.

Bright, rainbow-colored hair, a tall stature, and of course the aura that came with Eiro's growth in power. Most people here at least glanced at Eiro, and many were basically just staring at him the whole time as he walked through the streets. Of course, Eiro tried his best to just ignore them, but it was tough when whispers about him were coming from any place that he was trying to avert his focus to.

But luckily, Eiro soon reached the place that he wanted to go to. In the district filled solely with shops meant for nobles to use, many of which wouldn't even serve just regular commoners even if they had the money somehow, Eiro found the place that he wanted to get to. It was incredibly overpriced, but it was Avalin's favorite place, so he had to deal with the cost for a while.

The Demon pushed the door open and walked into the candy-shop. Immediately, the women and the children here in this place turned toward Eiro, who was rather out of place in this shop. However, at least the ones that worked here were acting professionally. One of the workers immediately came up to Eiro and asked if he needed any help, and the Demon quickly nodded his head.

"Mhm, give me just a second to look around..." Eiro said, quickly glancing at everything that could be found here in this shop. The worker quickly nodded their head.

"Of course, please let us know once you're do-"

"I'm done." Eiro replied, pushing his hand forward and pulling out a piece of paper as well as a writing-feather out of his treasury. The Demon swiftly wrote a list onto the piece of paper, and then handed it to the worker.

"Get all of this together, please." Eiro instructed the employee, who looked at the list a bit surprised, "A-Ah, of course! Oh, but... we're out of Macarons at the moment. Someone came by and bought them all up for a tea-party just now. But we are currently making some new ones, it's only going to take about half an hour. If you're fine with waiting that long..?" The employee asked, and Eiro slowly nodded his head.

"Of course, half an hour is fine. Meanwhile, it smells like you also serve tea? Could I get a cup while I'm waiting?" Eiro asked, and the employee immediately nodded her head as she swiftly led Eiro toward a table that he could sit on while waiting for the macarons to be finished.

"Here you go. Now, what sort of tea would you like?" The employee asked, and Eiro didn't have to think about it for too long, "Some sort of herbal tea would be great. Something with strong flavor." The Demon replied, and the employee immediately nodded her head.

"Right away!" And so, she swiftly turned around and left to get the tea ready. Meanwhile, Eiro got out a book that he wanted to keep reading. It was one that he borrowed from the library earlier, one that had particular information about the different beastman tribes' physical features.

After a few minutes, the tea was served to him, so Eiro started to just drink it while casually reading. This was nice sometimes as well, and the book was rather interesting in itself. It seemed like very rarely, beastmen received the ability to transform further into their guardian spirits. These abilities had different ranges as well, of course. Some could become a humanoid version of that guardian spirit, somewhat close to what many were-beasts could do, while others could turn into a true version of that guardian spirits, meaning that they would fully turn into that beast when activating that ability.

Surely, that was an interesting ability... Eiro somewhat hoped that Leon would receive that ability. Not only would it make him rather powerful so that he could defend himself and others should his unique skills run rampant in the future, without requiring him to study combat directly, and it would also make it far more obvious what sort of beastman Leon was... It seemed like a simple solution, but it was one that Eiro was hoping for nonetheless.

Just as he was finished with this line of thought and was about to take another sip of his tea, he noticed that someone had approached the table and now took a seat right in front of him.

"Oh, what a coincidence that we meet again here! I was not aware you had a sweet-tooth, Lord Daemonherz~!" The woman said. It was a young lady from a lesser noble household, only a few years older than Sammy and Clementine. She was one of the ones trying to get closer to Eiro during the party after he officially became a baron.

"The sweets I ordered are not for me, but for my daughter." Eiro replied, not looking away from the page of the book he was looking at. The young lady looked at the cover of the book, and then clapped her hands together with a broad smile.

"Oh! You are trying to learn more about beastmen? I am somewhat of an expert on the topic, at least compared to most others living here in the capital." She exclaimed. She was obviously flustered, but Eiro could also tell that she wasn't exactly lying. He raised his head and looked past the book to lock eyes with the young lady.

"Truly? How so? I have barely come across any of them here in this country so far." The Demon pointed out, and as if it was obvious, the young lady began to chuckle, "Oh, of course you wouldn't find any of them here!"

"Hm? What do you-"

"My family happens to own a vacational home in an allied country to the south, by the ocean. It is truly a wonderful place. You see, I despise winter, and it's practically always summer there!" The lady explained, and Eiro stayed patient, since he wanted to figure out what this woman knew about beastmen, "And there, I learned a lot more about beastmen! The town we own that manor in is a harbor-town, one of the largest places connecting us to the continent in the south, so I could see many of them there! They were so cute, you see~?" The lady exclaimed with fond memories. Maybe Eiro misjudged her a bit. She seemed rather selfish and close-minded the last time her spoke with this young lady, but she wasn't that bad after all. Obviously Eiro would never end up having a close relationship with her in any way, but having connections with other noble households was fine anyway.

"Is that so? Do you perchance know something about beastman children entering a phase of pre-maturity?" Eiro asked her, but the young lady seemed rather confused.

"Pre-maturity? What do you mean?" She asked, and now Eiro was a bit taken-aback.

"You know, when a beastman's body changes away from the more human-like appearance, and they get their primary identifiers to connect them to their guardian spirit? And pre-maturity is when it happens to them before puberty." Eiro explained, before he saw something that truly disgusted him. And that was the expression of this young lady right in front of Eiro.

"Ehh...? Beastmen look like us as children? How disgusting, to think they might end up playing with our children without us knowing..." The young lady pointed out with a warped expression of disgust, "No wonder I never saw any beastman children in the enclosures... How scummy for those zoos to hide this fact from us."

Eiro felt a wave of anger flowing through his body, his own heart beating so loud it nearly deafened him. But instead of saying anything to the lady directly, Eiro asked her something instead, "And why... why do you think is it so obvious that there are no... beastmen here in this country..?"

"Huh?" The lady asked, confused about why Eiro's expression suddenly changed, "Well, of course it's because slavery is illegal here? Why would we need any beastmen in such a case?"

Eiro felt his body fill up with more anger and disgust. But he understood that it wasn't the fault of this woman directly. She was disgusting, absolutely horrifically so. But he also knew that she wasn't the only one that thought this way. Most people did. Most people thought of beastmen as lesser than themselves.

The thought that Leon could be mistreated in the future just because of something like that... Something so shallow, something he had no control over... It made Eiro just so angry, so absolutely, absolutely ang-

"Calm it down." Bavet whispered into Eiro's ear, as all of the Demon's senses were overwhelmed by the most disgusting things ever. Scent, touch, sight, hearing, everything around Eiro felt as if it became its worst version.

The Demon slowly stood up, his shaking body guided through Bavet's help. Eiro walked over toward the other side of the room, where a small, empty barrel stood that was formerly filled with sugar.

Eiro leaned over the barrel and proceeded to empty out his stomach right into it. It wasn't a great feeling, but at least it was enough to stop Eiro from running rampage and killing someone in here.

"Urgh..." Eiro muttered as he stood up straight again, using a handkerchief to wipe vomit from the sides of his mouth, looking at the young lady standing near him clearly worried.. The Demon smiled, inwardly thanking Bavet, as he spoke to the lady, "Sorry, but your very being, your rotten mind, is just so abhorrently vile that I couldn't control myself anymore."