DEMON'S VIRTUE

Eiro locked eyes with the female Troll in front of him, and slowly turned his head around to look at his party members. They were clearly waiting for Eiro to say what the Troll told him, but even they were able to guess what was going on considering how the Troll was pulling herself toward the Demon.

Eiro turned back toward the Troll and shook his head, "That's not what I meant. I want you to become my servant, not my bride..."

"I can serve you as your bride..." She replied bluntly, and Eiro let out a deep sigh. He grabbed the Troll's arms and pushed them away from himself without much trouble, "I already have someone I love." Eiro told her.

The Troll looked at Eiro with a seductive expression, "She could not be more beautiful than me, could she?"

"She is. She's the fourth most beautiful woman I know." Eiro said bluntly, "I will say it again. You can become my servant, but never my bride. Will you still follow my strength?"

The Troll looked back at Eiro, slowly stepping off her bed. She knelt down in front of him with mannerisms he had never really seen from monsters before. Rather, it was something that people did when speaking to their lords.

"I will become yours. For now, a servant. Even if you don't want me as your bride just yet, your strength is still utterly beautiful." She said with a slight smile on her face, and Eiro stared back at her, "What is your name?" He asked, slowly managing to speak in a more clear troll-speech accent.

The troll in front of him quickly shook her head, however, "I don't have a name."

"...I see." Eiro said, slowly closing his eyes. He thought about some good ideas for names, and then got a good idea. A term that roughly translated to 'the pursue of power' in the ancient language, "Rashi. Your name will be Rashi from today."

"I humbly accept this name of mine." She replied, slowly standing up as Eiro looked toward his party, switching from troll-speech back to common as he began to explain the situation.

"So, I won't go into too much detail of what we spoke about, but she agreed to be my subordinate." The Demon quickly told them, as the female troll stepped past him.

In troll-speech, she said, "Then let me take out these pests for you now, my lord." Rashi kept approaching Eiro's party members, and before her right foot managed to touch the wooden floor one more time, Eiro had cut her body in half with his three of swords and was now holding her up by her neck.

"They're my companions. Don't you dare touch them. Understood?" Eiro told Rashi in a threatening way, concentrating all of his charisma into his voice to sound as threatening as possible. Rashi's body quickly began to regenerate. Her legs rotted away while new ones grew underneath her torso. When her new feet touched the grund, she turned around with a weird smile on her face.

"If my lord says so, I will spare them for now." She explained with a broad grin, quickly following behind Eiro as the Demon walked up to his party members, "Anyway, she's taken care of for now. I'll be able to stop her if she tries to attack you, don't worry." He reassured them, when James pointed at the female troll with a wry smile.

"Good to know, but could you have her wear clothes or something? It might be a bit awkward having her run around naked the whole time..." James pointed out, considering that Rashi looked quite a lot like a human.

Eiro shrugged and pushed his hand into his satchel. He rummaged around in it pretty deep for a while, until he pulled out a small vial. He popped the cork off it and threw the seeds inside of it at Rashi. He manipulated them so that they buried themselves in her flesh. Some in her arms, some in her chest, some in her legs, and of course some around her lower back.

The Demon pressed his hand onto Rashi's stomach, before pouring some mana into her. At this point, he was able to quite easily avoid another's magic circuits, allowing him to freely move his mana through them if he so wanted. And just like that, Eiro managed to let all of the seeds grow all at once in specific ways.

He made some parts grow then rot away, and then grow and rot away again. For a few seconds, it looked like Rashi was being buried inside of a thick log growing around her, but that log just as quickly crumbled away. Now, Rashi was just wearing some wooden armor that would cover up her private areas, while also making it possible for her to help in combat in a more unobstructed way.

And of course, at the same time, since she had this wood all over her body now, Eiro was able to control her more easily if he wanted to. He could make the seeds grow deeper into her flesh at will so that he could trap her just like the others if he just wanted to. After all, she still held monstrosity within her, and while Eiro knew for a fact that she genuinely pledged herself to him, she might still choose to do some things he didn't want her to because she thought it would be helpful to Eiro.

So until they managed to seal her monstrosity and teach her how she was supposed to treat others, he had to be as careful as possible.

"This is bothersome... Just let me walk around without it." Rashi complained, but Eiro just rolled his eyes and shook his head, "No, you'll be wearing that for now."

"...Yes, my lord." She agreed with a light frown, and slowly started to follow Eiro out of the room. She laid eyes on all those skeletal trolls standing in the hallway, but didn't even bat an eye. She clearly just didn't care about them at all, just as Eiro would expect from a monster like this.

But for now, no matter how she acted, she was a great source of information about this town, "How many monsters are your level are here in town?" He asked her, and Rashi scoffed, "There was no creature like me in this town before you came, my lord."

"Just answer the question. I know that you know what I mean."

"...There's some bothersome lizard bitch... Then that super annoying bird? Then there's also... that mole, but I don't see him too often. That dumb, big dog would be one too... And then that demon thing." Rashi explained. Despite only having access to troll-speech, she was clearly incredibly intelligent, something that Eiro didn't particularly expect. She was able to explain everything quite well, and quickly continued, "I heard there's some idiot down in the water as well."

"Do you mean the Lord of the Lake? The one trapped underneath this island?"

"That thing? Nah, that's not a bother anymore. It scared the shit outta me when I first came here, but I was fine pretty quickly. Some other bitch said that the domain down there belongs to her, so that's that." Rashi explained to Eiro, who raised his brows surprised.

"It scared you when you first got here? Being tied up like that, it barely gives off any sort of vibe that could scare monsters." Eiro pointed out, "When did you come here?"

"A long time ago... There were many of us. Some, like me, were allowed to stay here and protect this place from pests, and then a bunch others that left came back." Rashi explained, and Eiro's whole body froze up immediately.

"I heard other monsters joined this island over the years, but you were one of the originals, huh?" The Demon muttered. Rashi was also a monster that was created for that horde back then, which would explain her current form.

Throughout Eiro's evolutions, his body slowly tried to fit closer to the true form of his soul, which was the form of the human whose soul the Monster King took. He knew that not all of those monsters were created through the souls of people, but it certainly seemed like Rashi was, and throughout her own evolutions, her body changed in a similar way, making her a lot more humanoid... Although for some reason, she looked just like a human, while Eiro still had a lot of facial features that belonged to an imp... Was the human whose soul he was created with just really, really ugly or something?

Eiro kept thinking, when he recalled that Rashi mentioned a Demon, "Does that demon you mentioned have wings and a scorpion tail like I do?"

"Yes he does, how did you know? Ah, he must be the same kind as you! He was apparently assigned to be the true 'leader' of this town by that really, really strong one... Even I have to say that he is more powerful than me, but in the most disgusting way... His power is not nearly as beautiful as you, my lord."

"I see." Eiro said with a light grin on his face, feeling kind of excited for what was going to happen throughout this conquest of the town.. He turned around toward his party members and smiled lightly at the hilarious situation, and spoke in common again, saying something that surprised the others, "Turns out, the strongest being on this island is another Imp."