DEMON'S VIRTUE

Solomon looked away from the book and quickly threw it toward Eiro, "But, erm... take that with you, please. I don't particularly want you spying on me. You can already tell what I'm doing far too easily by just being in the vicinity." The King pointed out, and Eiro lightly shrugged, "Fair enough. Either way, will you allow me to go through with my plan and attach servants to coins?"

"...I will not allow you, no." Solomon said after a few seconds of hesitation, "But I also will not tell you not to do it. Because I never heard of this plan, alright? That means that if anyone finds out that there are those things attached to coins all over the country, I won't know anything about it."

Eiro smiled lightly, "I see. Thank you. I think I should head home to meet with the others now. It has been a rather eventful day, after all. We wanted to celebrate a bit."

Solomon slowly walked over toward his desk and sat down on it as Eiro made his way over toward the door so that he could leave, but before he could step through the door, the King suggested something else, "Oh, and make sure you're prepared for your promotion ceremony."

"Promotion..? Do you mean the Noble Promotion?"

"Of course. You're already a baron, I can't not promote you to viscount with all of the success that you've racked up. And especially with our new friend in opposing factions, this will go through quite smoothly, will it not?" Solomon pointed out, and Eiro looked back at him with a wry smile, as Solomon just smiled lightly.

Eiro let out a slight sigh of annoyance, "Is that really necessary? I'm fine just being a baron, you see?"

"Sure you are. But you won't get much more responsibility anyway. I can make sure that the only thing that will happen is that your title changes. Your barony will stay the same size, but will be named its own county instead. But, you also now have access to funds to further increase the economical and cultural growth of said county. It's not necessarily much, but under the guise of a special outpost in the mountains, we can start setting up trading relations between the monster town and nearby towns and villages. You said that they have progressed immensely, right?"

Eiro scratched the back of his head with a bit of thought, "That's true, yeah, but I'm not sure if they're ready for that yet. There are still quite a few monsters originally from the floating island that we haven't been able to fully integrate into the city. Having been created by the monster king, their willpower is particularly high, so they're more resistant to mental manipulation, even if it is of a positive kind. And sadly, sealing away their monstrosity includes that. For now, I don't feel comfortable in sending any random person too close there." Eiro explained as he started to think about it for a while, "But maybe... I could set up an outpost of sorts. I could clean up the roads of the mountain properly as well, and create some faster routes. There's this group of adventurers bothering me lately that have been taking a path of the mountain they weren't supposed to."

Solomon thought about it for a little while as well, "Alright, do that. Let me know if you need any particular materials, or any soldiers or staff to set up at that outpost." He suggested, and Eiro quickly nodded his head before making his way out of the room. Eiro walked through the castle, trying to avoid the nobles that were staying here at the moment and were yelling at their chosen candidates for losing so quickly during the tournament, now that it was all over.

Eiro also stopped for a while to just smalltalk with some of the guards stationed around the castle, and was congratulated by all of them. And when he was outside, Eiro jumped up into the sky and made sure to hide himself as much as he could, before flying off toward his home. A few moments later he had picked up all the speed he needed and quickly folded his wings back up slightly, soon landing right on his property.

The moment he did, Bavet split off of him, and Eiro slightly smiled at him, "Good work today." Eiro said, and Bavet simply stared at the slime with his snake-eyes and started slithering away, "Right, sure..."

"No, really, you held it together really well. Even during the short moment that the field of reversal affected us."

"...Seriously?" The slime asked, and Eiro immediately nodded his head, "Of course. Why would I lie about something like that? You know I don't purposefully choose nice words when speaking to you."

"Right, right, sure. Well, thanks I guess. If you're serious." Bavet muttered, and continued slithering away, soon entering the manor.

Eiro swiftly followed him, and quickly made his way into the sitting room, where everyone else could currently be found. The first to run up to Eiro was of course Avalin, who had become even more clingy ever since she found out that Eiro wasn't hurt by her touch anymore. So, the Demon picked her up and walked over toward Ariella, gave her a kiss, and then sat down on the couch next to her with a deeply exhausted sigh.

"Alright, so..." The Demon said with a slight smile on his face, as everyone was just staring at him, "Let's celebrate, shall we?" He said, and immediately, nearly everyone jumped up and got everything that they needed for a party. Drinks, food, whatever. Anything.

Eiro slightly turned his head to the side, seeing James and Jess bickering over by the table, so Eiro looked forward at Krog while most of the others were busy.

"Are you alright?" Eiro asked, and Krog slightly raised his head, "Hm? Yeah, I'm fine." He said, "Just... feeling a little frustrated, if I'll be honest with you. I was pretty excited about potentially being second in the tournament... and now I don't even have an official ranking. I'm just a quarter finalist. I mean, sure, the fight was a shitton of fun, but... I feel like I failed y'all, you know?"

Eiro looked at his friend before letting out a deep sigh, "Krog. That guy was literally artificially strengthened by a goddess, and had a surreal ability he got from that goddess at the same time." He pointed out, "He kind of had an unfair advantage."

"...Wait, what?" Krog asked with a wry smile, "What do you mean?"

As he grew more and more confused, Armodeus looked at Eiro from behind the couch as well, "Yeah, what d'ya mean? He was... strengthened by a goddess?"

"I'll explain it to you guys later. But I'll say it again, that there is nothing for you guys to worry about. That kid? He didn't earn anything of what he got. He was thrown here, and didn't even bother to learn how to control his powers properly." Eiro said bluntly, "It's infuriating, really."

"...That is... that really is infuriating..." Krog muttered as his sad frown turned into an angry version of itself, "What the fuck's that supposed to be? Fucking hell..." He grumbled, before standing up and grabbing a bottle of alcohol that was standing on the table and getting a glass for himself ready.

Eiro smiled lightly and looked at the warrior, "But don't worry. He doesn't know how to get stronger either. But you do. All of you will be more powerful than him at some point, don't worry."

"Wait... does that mean we gotta do that insane training regime again?" James asked with a wry smile, but Eiro immediately shook his head, "No, don't worry. We have the time to look into other possibilities now."

Eiro turned his head toward Armodeus, "Also, because I just got my hands on a certain item that will help us create something quite special."

"You-" Armodeus stared back with wide open eyes, before his face turned incredibly excited, "Things really might get quite interesting soon then."

Eiro slowly stood up, and walked over toward the table as well. With Avalin still held by one of his arms, he grabbed a bottle of alcohol and some glasses with his other three arms and started pouring everyone, of course only those that could actually drink, something to really start out this celebration.

"It's been a while, but finally, we can relax. We have brought a lot of hurdles behind us, and while there are many in front of us still, we can take a break now." Eiro said with a smile on his face, "I am proud of all of you. The six of you nearly completely your first semester at the Academy, you three have become so much stronger, and our family has grown a bit more over the past little while." Eiro said, looking at everyone in this room in turn, "And in celebration of all that, I am going to bring all of you on a bit of a vacation. In a few weeks, we will be traveling to the tropical Baram Kingdom, as a bit of a break from the cold and rainy climate here."

Everyone was kind of excited about the idea of traveling to another country for vacation, but of course, the only person that really had any idea of what Baram might be like was Arc. He stared at Eiro with a broad grin on his face, before slowly turning away.

"Ah, there it is... it's finally coming.... the beach episode!"