DEMON'S VIRTUE

All around Eiro, there was nothing but darkness. He didn't know what exactly was going on, but he did know that he didn't like it in the slightest. It was as if there was something directly in front of him, ever so slowly moving closer toward him until it was just a couple of meters, then a single meter, then just a couple of inches, and then barely a finger's width away from his face.

And it stopped there, it never touched him, but the young Imp definitely knew something was there, it was just too dark for him to be able to see it.

No matter how much the Imp tried to extend his hand forward either, he didn't manage to get a hold of whatever it was right in front of him, before the sound of wood clattering against each other could be heard from deep inside of the darkness, and Eiro shot up from this weird dream, before he found the source of the clattering.

It was the wooden box that the old man Jura had with him before, as it was hitting against the interior wall of the carriage as it was shaking back and forth. And just when the Imp looked around, he soon saw the children silently sleeping in here as well. All the children, all six of them. Without hesitation, the Imp stood up and tried to get used to this shaking that was much worse in here than when sitting at the front of the carriage.

And just when the Imp was trying to hold onto something, he fell down, as if he just missed the object that he was seeing right next to him. As if there was just a single chunk of the box missing right where the Imp wanted to hold onto it.

"Ah..." Eiro muttered quietly as the carriage came to a hault in response to the loud thumping sound the Imp caused just now, while he himself managed to see what actually happened. It wasn't a chunk at the side of the box he was trying to hold onto, but rather a chunk at the end of his arm.

It didn't feel real at the slightest, because he was still able to feel stinging and burning pain at the tips of his fingers that just weren't there anymore. Not only the one finger that had been ripped off before, but his whole hand was just completely gone.

But before he could even really react in any different way, the door in front of him opened up and the old man Jura could be seen there.

"Get up already, you bum." Jura said with a light grumble, and the Imp stared at him while trying to look for his Dagger.

"Oh don't even try. I'm in a bad mood, you're not gonna be able to even give me a scratch the way you're right now." The old man pointed out annoyedly as he stepped into the carriage and grabbed the Imp by the shoulders before just pulling him out through the door before the children would be woken up.

Confused, the Imp just stared at the old man while trying to properly grasp the situation. "What... What did you do to my hand..?" Eiro asked, but Jura just sighed and slowly stepped up to the front of the carriage with his hands behind his back and climbed onto it with a single jump, before tapping the bench next to him, as if signaling Eiro to sit down there.

Slowly, the young monster did as told and tried his best to climb on top of there, which was harder than he expected with just one hand. And when Eiro was finally sitting there, Jura made the horses start moving again while grabbing a small bag sitting next to him.

Eiro grabbed it with his remaining hand and pulled it open with the help of his teeth, before looking through it and sein a few light brown-ish chunks inside of it, although he didn't completely understand what this all was supposed to be.

"What are you staring at? You asked what I did to it, so I showed it to you." Jura said with a slight sigh, and the Imp immediately snapped his head over toward him. "What do you mean?"

"Those are your bones. Demon Bones are pretty useful, so it felt wrong to bury them with your flesh. And while I don't know how you killed your hand off like that, I suggest you don't do the same thing again."

Slowly, the Imp took one of the chunks out of the bag and took a closer look at it. "I... Killed my hand?" He asked, and with another grumble, Jura nodded his head. "Yes, you did. Smelled a whole lot like Holy Energy, and no matter how high your resistance is, you're still a Demon. That shouldn't happen."

While grinding his teeth together, Eiro just stared at the old man next to him.

"Could you just explain to me what's going on? What happened after I killed that man?" Eiro asked, and Jura just swiftly explained it.

"You killed him, I killed the other and then hurt my back while pulling their bodies away. Then I let the children out of the carriage and we spoke a bit while I treated your hand." With that swift explanation, Jura continued with his head turned forward, and just when the Imp wanted to speak, Jura did so first.

"Those children told me quite a few things about you, you see? How you did not hesitate for a moment to save those six, and not for a fraction of a moment to get rid of those that might make that harder. Why is that?" With his head still turned forward, letting Eiro see the scar covering his face just so slightly, the old man seemed to just wait for an answer, although the demon himself didn't know about that.

"I don't know."

"Why those children?"

"I don't know."

"Do you like people more than monsters?"

"I... don't know..." The Imp replied over and over again, before Jura just sighed out deeply. "Is there anything you do know?" He asked, and the Imp nodded his head in response.

"Yes. I know that no matter who it is that threatens me or my life, I will not hesitate to end them. I know that I do not want those children to get hurt, even if I don't know why. And I don't know if I like people more than monsters because I like neither, but I also hate neither." Eiro said quite clearly, making the old man next to him apparently seem quite surprised.

"Oh? Can you elaborate on that last one?"

With a click of his tongue, the Imp slowly leaned back against the wood of the carriage-wall behind him. "I am a Monster. In the books I read, Monsters are enemies of all the people of the world. So, as I am a Monster, I should be on their side. But the only Monsters I have met so far were either just beasts, or just horrible beings, so I'm not on their side, meaning that I should be on the side of the people." Eiro explained slowly, unsure why he was telling all of this to Jura all of a sudden, before the old man slowly nodded his head.

"I see... And it seems like you don't want to be on the side of the people?" And while I met a few people as well... If they weren't horrible in the foreground, they were so in the background... Except these children. I don't think they're hiding anything. So... I don't think I'm on the side of the people either..." The Imp said as he then silently stared forward, and Jura nodded his head slowly in response.

"Then you're on your own side." He pointed out, but Eiro just turned his head over toward him surprised. "My own... side?" Eiro asked, and Jura immediately nodded his head once more.

"Of course. This world isn't just black and white, you know. You can make your own gray spot."

Slowly, Eiro started thinking about this, and in the end just slowly nodded his head. It wasn't like he was planning on doing anything other than that anyway, but it was nice to hear someone say it out loud.

And then, the Imp remembered something that Jura said before, and for some reason felt his heart beat faster. "What is an apprentice?" The Imp asked, before the old man raised his brows surprised.

"Oh, I expected someone as wordy as you to know... An Apprentice is someone that learns the craft of their teacher. A Smith's Apprentice will learn how to smith, a Hunter's Apprentice will learn how to Hunt, and a Chef's Apprentice will learn how to cook."

Slowly, Eiro turned his head toward the old man to look him up and down and make sure that he wasn't about to make another, big mistake. His instincts were telling him that this was just some carefree, harmless old man, but the Imp was more than just aware that this definitely wasn't the case in the slightest. This probably was a mistake, but the Imp just had to take this risk. He might have managed to kill two of those Lords, and trick some of the others, but in the end all that Eiro could do in that town was run away.

If he didn't have anything with holy Energy with him then, he would have been dead immediately. He would have been brought to the Lord of Wrath by that Shadow, and then he would have died immediately. Compared to him, this old man was quite strong, wasn't he? His body seemed weaker than the Imp's, but he was able to carry such a heavy box that the muscular man from before couldn't even properly budge, and Jura was able to dodge all of the Imp's attacks without even actually seeing him.

And so, Eiro just asked.

"And what Prosthetist apprentice learn?" He inquired in a quiet voice, and the man beside him just started to smirk. "A Prosthetist Apprentice learns how to make prostetics. How to replace that which was lost as if it was never gone." The old man chuckled, and the Imp looked down at his hand, or the place where one was before, and then back at Jura.

"You are looking or an Apprentice... That's what you said, right?"

With a grin, the old man slowly started to make the Carriage stop. He hadn't realized it, but it seemed like they were riding up a hill, and not even on any proper roads, just heavily overgrown paths.

And right in front of them stood a Large Tree, which had a wooden hut built right into its base.

While Eiro was looking at this place confused, Jura swiftly jumped down from the carriage and made his way over to the Hut's door, simply turning toward the Imp with a smile.

"How about we continue speaking about this inside?"