DEMON'S VIRTUE

Eiro landed on the windowsill of one of the second-floor windows, and swiftly stepped into the hallway of his manor. It was a lot quicker than having to go through the front door, especially with his target currently being Leon and Avalin's bedroom.

The boxes were still floating right beside Eiro, and everything was perfectly intact. He made sure of that by manipulating the air-currents around the boxes while he was flying back home.

The Demon swiftly opened the door to his children's room. Avalin jumped up the moment she saw Eiro and ran over toward him, dropping her pens that she used to draw a bit right now.

"Yaay!" She exclaimed. But of course, that wasn't an exclamation of her happiness of seeing Eiro, but rather, of seeing the boxes right beside him. Eiro rolled his eyes and placed the boxes onto the table at the side of the room, and opened them up.

Eiro quickly whistled a short melody, and then said, "Get us some plates."

A minute or two later, the door opened up once more and one of the monster servants was carrying four plates. He placed them down onto the table, and then excused himself. Eiro then proceeded to put some of the cookies, a bit of cake, and a few of the fresh macarons onto the plate.

"Now, eat it slowly, alright?" The Demon said, before Avalin practically ripped the plate out of his hands. She rushed over to her child-sized table and proceeded to dig in and eat the sweets.

"Do you want some cake as well, Armodeus?" Eiro asked, and the Elder Dwarf slowly turned around to him, "Ah, later, maybe. For now... Do ya really think that the boy is alright? He's been doin' nothing but sleep lately..."

Eiro approached Leon's bed and sat down on it, rubbing his hand over his son's leg through the blanket, "Yeah, don't worry. He's probably fine. Leon has always been a heavy sleeper. Back then, it was because of the markings used to seal away his skills, and now, it's because of the changes that he's undergoing right now."

"Hm? Changes..? Ah, right, Gondos said something about pre-maturity?" Armodeus said, "What exactly does that mean?"

"Well... basically, when a beastman 'matures', they gain their physical identifiers binding them to their guardian spirit. In cases where a child's flow of mana is suddenly and extremely changed, it can cause this event to occur even before puberty, which is when it's usually supposed to happen. That is what's happening to Leon right now. My best guess is that it happened exactly because his skills were unsealed."

"Ah... I see... So does that mean that the boy's suddenly gonna shoot up in height as well? Basically skip a few years?" Armodeus asked, but Eiro immediately shook his head, "No, it's not like that. In the books I read about this, it said that he's going to age and otherwise physically mature like normal, as he would have otherwise, he simply already has... you know, whatever identifiers he has. During his puberty in a few years, he might end up being a bit hairier, but that's basically it. No need to worry about it... Mostly."

Armodeus looked at Eiro with a worried expression. Leon was clearly dead asleep, so they had no issue whispering about it here, so Eiro swiftly explained, "The process of maturity is not an easy time for a beastman in the first place. Their body is changing in rapid ways. In Leon's case, as he seems to be growing a tail, he is literally gaining new bones. He's going to have a tough time seeing for a while since his eyes are also changing. If he is from a carnivorous tribe, his teeth might start aching soon. It's that kind of thing." Eiro explained, "So at the end of the day, nothing to worry about, but we'll still need to take care of Leon a bit more than normal."

"Alright, if you say so, lad... But really, to think that this boy is a beastman... He really looks completely like a human, doesn't he? If he could have stayed like this a while longer, life might have been easier for him." Armodeus sighed, and Eiro swiftly turned toward the Elder Dwarf, "What do you mean, exactly?"

"Hm? Oh, it's... in most places, simply because of this 'maturity' as you call it, many see beastmen as... 'Monster Kin'. Not true monsters, but somethin' close to it, I guess." Armodeus pointed out, "So due to that, they're not particularly kindly regarded in most places. Sure, in Skyhart, such discrimination is outlawed, but in the surrounding and allied countries... Not so much."

"Well, at least he'll have me and my name to protect him from anything that could happen to him." The Demon grumbled quietly, still feeling incredbily disgusted and angry at the idea that Leon might be mistreated in such a way simply because he wasn't exactly the same as others. Although...

"One... One of my first memories, it was something that I'm not that proud of anymore, but it fits to this. I understand that it's in the nature of people and even monsters to shun those that are different, but I thought that those with higher intelligence would be a bit different than my lesser-imp self. In the horde, when I was still part of it, the imp that was always walking in front of me was the strongest of the bunch. He was always the one that ended up killing monsters in our group, so he was the first to evolve. I saw that he was growing something out of his back, most likely something like rudimentary wings, and I attacked him for that trait, because he was different." Eiro explained to Armodeus, who was quietly listening.

"But before you judge me, that was before I gained even my first point in... well, anything, really. I had not a single point in intelligence, wisdom, perception... or anything, really. I hit that imp repeatedly, and I don't think I did a single point of damage to him." The Demon leaned back a bit, making sure not to bother Leon as he was sleeping, "Statistically, people have literally infinitely more intelligence than I back then, and they're still acting like I did? It's... weird."

"Of course, this isn't about logic. It's about fear. The fear that people have ingrained into them, thinking that even the weakest monster can slaughter a whole town. The fear of the unknown, which all of us possess... You can't tell me that you never felt scared when staring into a deep abyss, not knowing what would come next. Generation through generation, these fears were carried over from parent to child, and grew in intensity. Soon, fear became anger, and anger became hatred. And that hatred... became normal." Armodeus explained, "It's something that disgusts me as well, trust me. Even I experienced that sort of thing quite often, when I was travelling through the continent. In smaller settlements where they may have never even heard of a dwarf, I as well was seen as a freak. I might even still have scars from that time. Of course, now I can pass as a bulky human because of my height, but back then, before I ascended to being an Elder Dwarf, I was maybe half the height that I'm now. A grown man with a thick beard and thundering voice, stronger than even most warriors I came across. All that, with the height of a human child."

Eiro turned his head toward Leon, and let out a deep sigh, "I think it's good that we happened to meet Solomon at your shop back then... I've never entered a church of my own volition, but maybe I should offer a prayer to the Goddess of Fate sometime."

"Haha, aye, maybe ya should, lad." Armodeus laughed, "The Gods are fickle in regards to who they favor, but it does seem like that one has kept its eye on you for a while now."

"Which would be rather ironic, wouldn't it?"

"Who knows, maybe the human yer soul was taken from was a Priest to the Goddess of Fate." Armodeus laughed along with Eiro. The two stayed quiet for a while, as Eiro continued watching Leon sleep a bit longer.

A few minutes later, Armodeus stood up from the chair that he had pulled to the side of the bed and laughed a bit, "I think I'm ready for that slice of cake now, lad."

Eiro smiled and stood up as well, "Coming right up." The Demon replied. He chose to take a slice for himself as well, and then continued to talk for a while with Armodeus over cake and tea. It was nice. Eiro understood why human nobles liked doing this all the time.

But soon enough, Eiro's conversation with Armodeus was interrupted, as the Demon noticed someone approaching the manor on horseback.

"Sorry, I need to check this out real quick." Eiro said, placing down the cup of tea in his hand. He swiftly grabbed Bavet, who was laying on the ground in his cat-form, and pressed the slime's core into his chest. The slime covered his whole body just a moment later, "Eh, what's happening?" Bavet asked, slightly disoriented.

Eiro swiftly stepped out of the room and rushed over toward the open window at the end of the hallway, and simply jumped out. With a few flaps of his wings, he accelerated enough so that he managed to jump all the way over toward the gate in the front of his manor's premises.

And there, he swiftly stopped the messenger from the royal castle.