DEMON'S VIRTUE

"Seriously? You think there are things out there even stronger than the demon king?" One of the transmigrators, the beast tamer, asked, and Eiro rolled his eyes, "Again, it's 'monster king', and yes, obviously I do. If the monster king was so strong, we'd all already be dead long before the hero can even reach maturity." Eiro pointed out bluntly, "The only reason that doesn't happen is because there are groups of people out there that have reached heights comparable, or greater than, the hero at his peak. And that isn't just exclusive to people. Everyone knows that magic beasts like dragons have a surreal amount of power, but you seriously think that a dragon that's thousands of years old is going to be weaker than a little brat that's been in power for a decade or two at best? Good one."

"...But... Huh?" The beast tamer let out, "Then why the fuck are we here? Why aren't we trying to get rid of all those other guys?"

Eiro looked at the transmigrator with a frown and slightly sat up, "So you want to get rid of everyone that's even remotely a threat to you? Sounding like a noble already." He scoffed, "Even if you wanted to, you couldn't. Sure, not all of them are immensely powerful at individual battles, but... Let's take a rather famous individual, Eliza Koperia." Eiro said, looking at Biril with a wink, to let him know that he shouldn't reveal that this was the exact Koperia that he had also brought along to this island. She never bothered hiding it, but Eiro didn't want to deal with things that could happen when her identity was put out into the open.

"So, she's a necromancer, right? She has achieved a near impossible feat, and that is to get her death magic skill to master grade. There are only a few dozen individuals in this world with master grade skills, I'll let you know. Through all that work she has done to achieve that, she has also studied numerous magical theories and became powerful in other sorts of casting on top of necromancy, so even as an individual, she's far more powerful than anyone else here." Eiro explained quickly, "But a necromancer isn't truly fearsome when you're facing them as an individual. This woman, she has brought whole armies to ruin on her own. She kills one man, and makes him her undead servant. Then that undead kills another two, and she has three undead. And so on, and so forth. She has an undying army that grows during the battle, while her enemy's numbers keep dwindling. Meanwhile, she's sitting on her throne of death and bones and drinking some Argian wine."

The beast tamer opened his eyes wide, "Then why ain't she here? She'd be a big help, right?"

"I can answer that question." One of the Baram Warriors that had overheard the conversation quickly stepped in, "Individuals like her... they do not care for this war, as if they aren't people themselves. To this day, there has only been one Master that has joined the efforts of killing the monster king... and when they did, after killing said monster king before the hero even reached them, they famously said 'Ahh, how boring... maybe you can entertain me more', just to turn and kill the hero themselves."

Eiro slightly looked up into the sky and thought about what the warrior just said, and smiled wrily. Sadly, he had a rough idea of who he was talking about, and he was an individual that Eiro had plans of visiting in the next few years, "Well, not all of them are like that. Those that achieve master grade skills are obviously obsessed with that skill. There's no other way to get there other than to be that obsessed. But yeah, don't get in their way, because they will certainly kill you if you do." Eiro pointed out as he slightly looked away, while Biril was forcing himself to stare forward.

"Erm, anyway... Masters simply don't concern themselves with these manners. We can be lucky that they aren't our enemies. Rather, them just existing is enough help already."

"Yup." Eiro said, agreeing with the Baram warrior, "Without them, the royals and monster king would have already overrun this continent while playing around. You could call those masters the equivalent of royals. The peak of people, whereas royals are the peak of monsters." The Demon explained, before Bavet quietly whispered into the Demon's ear, "Kinda bragging about yourself here a little, huh?"

"Shut it." Eiro thought to himself, unable to answer the slime right now, as he instead kept his focus on the others.

"Speaking of... what kinda masters are there?" Biril soon asked, trying to change the topic to other people, and away from Koperia as much as possible, and Eiro quickly replied, "Well... Blacksmithing, Alchemy, Hand-to-Hand Combat, Dagger Mastery, Stealth, Swordsmanship... Woodcarving, even."

"What, woodcarving? What kinda dumbass would dedicate their life to something like that?" The beast tamer scoffed with a loud laugh, just to be stared at intensely by everyone else. After all, the name of the master of carving was well known as well.

"Oi, shut your fucking mouth." Eiro said with a deep glare, "You don't know anything about him."

"That's right..." The Baram warrior added, "That man... Jura, he is truly a wicked being... Apparently, he augments and creates monsters by carving wooden bodyparts for them, turning them into weapons for himself... He even was the one that saved the current Monster King from the former Hero's wrath. Absolutely disgusting, that traitor."

Eiro sat there, baffled by what the warrior just said. He turned his head toward Biril, who was once more staring forward nervously.

"I- Are you a fucking idiot?" Eiro asked, looking at the Baram warrior, "I thought everyone here knows this, but Jura is my father. My name is Eiro Jura Daemonherz, I inherited his fucking name and his legacy." The Demon said in an annoyed, angry tone, as the Baram warrior looked back with a wry smile.

"W-What a good joke that is... But please, don't lie about things like that..."

"I'm the owner of the Absolute Domain of Truth. I don't lie." The Demon said bluntly, and the Baram warrior froze up, "I'm gonna tell you this one time, and one time only. If you ever say anything bad about Jura every again, whether I'm there or not, I'll rip you limb from limb personally. He wasn't some mad scientist, he was a prosthetist and healer, as am I."

"A prosthe-what?" Biril asked with a wry smile, and Eiro rolled his eyes as he stretched his hand forward, "A prosthetist. He would travel the continent, finding injured people, animals, monsters... anything and anyone that needed it, and he would help them. He would make new limbs for war veterans, he would let those whose faces had been disfigured during combat be recognized by their kids again, and he would help out random animals that got away from hunters. And you know what? Once I'm done with all this crap, once I've achieved my goal, do you know what I'll do?" Eiro said bluntly, fully leaning back onto Lugo's antlers, "I'll settle down in a remote corner of the world and do the same thing he did. I'll become a prosthetist. Even right now, I consider myself an adventurer, teacher, and prosthetist by profession."

Everyone around the Demon that heard his words looked at him surprised. He was clearly the strongest one here, and he called himself a prosthetist? And then... the beast tamer looked at Eiro with a determined expression, "You can make prosthetics? Seriously? Like, proper, artificial limbs?" He asked, and Eiro slowly nodded, keeping his eyes closed.

"Can you... help out one of my beasts?"

---

The beast tamer had roughly explained the situation to Eiro, and some of the others that had overheard them talking were quite curious about Eiro's words as well. And of course, if someone genuinely asked him for help with a prosthetic, Eiro couldn't just turn them down. So, a large portion of the group had stopped at a place where Eiro would be able to work, or at least take a look at the beast in question. There were those that weren't interested of course, but the majority stayed behind. Of course, that included a portion of the Baram warriors, who were here to make sure nothing happened to these champions.

"Alright, where is it? Are you going to call it here, or what?" Eiro asked, looking at the transmigrator, who slowly nodded his head. Eiro already expected this, but slowly, the beast tamer held his hand forward and closed his eyes. A cloud of mist appeared in front of him, and soon, inside of it, Eiro could sense the special space within the young man's body. It was a large open field, with many different environments, filled with numerous different animals. It didn't seem like there was a limit to the amount of beasts he could tame or store like this. Truly, the blessings of the gods seemed like cheats sometimes...

Either way, what the Demon then saw in front of him was a pair of quite special beasts. The larger of the two was a bulking creature, a huge bear. It was a monster, of course. It was covered in a thick carapace like that of a bug, but also fur to an extent. And even when sitting on its back-end, it was still towering above everyone and anything else here.

It was missing an ear and an eye, as well as one of its legs and a large portion of hide all over its back. And then, there was the other beast. It was a small monkey, the kind that could easily sit down on Eiro's palms. It was clearly missing its tail, and half of its body was basically completely scorched away. Its left arm and leg were both turned into charcoal, but were still attached. It was quite sad, really.

Eiro slowly stretched out his arm toward them, but the beast tamer tried to stop him, "Wait, they're quite... aggressive..." He said, but was surprised by what he saw.. These beasts that even he had trouble taming due to their aggressive and untrusting nature, were calmly receiving Eiro's touch.