DEMON'S VIRTUE

"This is... this is really damn good..." James muttered with a slight smile on his face, while he was eating a grilled piece of the sea serpent that Eiro had just killed. All the other champions and their companions, as well as all the warrios and guards from Baram, were enjoying the sea serpent as well.

They obviously hadn't expected that Eiro would go out and hunt a huge monster like that, but it wasn't like anyone could really complain. It spared the organizers of all this some food expenses for a couple of days. It was truly a huge monster, after all.

"How did you even kill this? It doesn't have any injuries, right?" Hijar asked curiously, and Eiro smiled at the young beastman, "Killing something without leaving behind injuries is easy, especially fish type monsters. I just had to shock-freeze the water around it, force it to replace the water it had taken in with water that was going to freeze at the slightest impact to force it into its body, and then I hauled it out of the water with said ice, and by the time I was back at the beach, it was dead." He explained, "Of course, I could have done other things, but I didn't want to puncture any of its internal organs, since I know Koperia wanted those."

"...Is hunting really supposed to be that easy?" Hijar asked, and he soon felt a large, strong hand on his shoulder, "Hunting is never easy. Taking the shot, maybe, but the hunt itself? Never." One of the transmigrators, the beast tamer, said in a confident tone. Obviously, since nobody beside Eiro knew who this was, the silence at the table became rather uncomfortable pretty quickly.

"Erm... anyway, I did also want to ask... do you usually hunt things like that? That quickly?" The beast tamer asked, before Eiro let out a deep sigh, "Big doesn't always mean strong. You're a champion, go and get some more actual combat experience when you get back from this trip."

"Well yeah, that was the plan. Don't need ya to tell me that. But you were talking about training somehow as well, right? What sorta training do you guys do?"

Eiro looked at the transmigrator with a slight grin on his face. From his body, it was clear that he enjoyed physical training quite a bit, and was probably pretty good at it too. On earth, where he was from, stats weren't a thing, so you could only get stronger by training your body, apparently.

Maybe seeing how they trained their bodies on earth would be quite useful to Eiro to enhance his own physical training.

The conversation continued on for a short while longer, and Eiro actually learned a few things about the training methods of earth, before he suddenly sensed something. Eiro turned his head to the side. There was something over there. A group of birds, all suspiciously standing on the tree's branches. They looked like it was just a normal flock of tropical birds that could be found around here, but their smell was that of monsters. Or rather, one monster.

Eiro wasn't sure how exactly this was done, but he knew that something was wrong with them. The Demon slightly pointed his finger toward one of the birds, and gathered some blood in front of his fingertip. Since he now had access to the Bloodstone, his blood was the perfect material for these sorts of things, as he could stuff the blood with as much life force as he wanted to increase the damage by many times to ensure one-hit kills.

The bullet shot through the air, making a slight cracking sound that caught the attention of a few individuals.

"What the- Why'd you do that?" Jess asked with a wry smile, and Eiro simply turned his head, smiling at her as he heard the flock of birds fly away when one of them had been killed, "Nothing, just getting rid of a small bug."

---

It was the middle of the night, from the fourth to the fifth day of this retreat, when Eiro suddenly woke up. He pushed himself up on his bed, while Ariella, Leon and Avalin were laying on the bed next to him, still asleep.

The Demon slowly got up, and stepped toward the door. As he pulled it open, he dropped his cloak over his body while placing his mask on his face. It was easier for him to fight without Bavet covering his body, after all.

Once he stood outside, Eiro slowly turned his head, seeing the straight line between himself and the ocean. With a single flap of his wings, Eiro shot forward through the silent air, shooting past the guards that were patrolling the area, and soon stood on the beach.

There, he sat down, just to wait for a while.

"Eiro? What suddenly happened?" Nelli, Gondos and Sarius soon floated up behind the Demon, just barely having noticed that he suddenly left the hut. They had no idea what was going on. Eiro slowly turned his head, "Someone's coming, I'm just here to meet them." He explained.

The three spirits floated around next to the Demon, looking at the ocean in front of them, "Is it an enemy?"

"Well, I'm guessing so, at least. We'll see." Eiro replied, as he starts to prepare for what might be coming. And then, the figure in question came into sight. As if it was floating on top of the water, a large, bulking figure approached. Two large horns could be seen on its forehead, and it had a bull-like head. In its hand, it held a huge bulking hammer.

"A Minotaur, huh." He thought to himself, and then slowly glanced down at the thing that let the Minotaur float on top of the water like that. It was the shell of a turtle, just barely visible, "A bull an a turtle. Interesting combination." Slowly, Eiro stood up and waited there at the beach. Soon, the Minotaur seemed to see the Demon as well.

To Eiro's confusion, the Minotaur slowly pulled its arm back, ready to swing it forward. And at that moment, Eiro noticed something else. He was feeling a vibe from this minotaur, and more specifically, from this minotaur's hammer.

"Ah, shit." Eiro grumbled, immediately pushing his hand forward while pulling his grimoire out of his treasury. He tried to create a strong barrier using arcane magic as quickly as he could, as the hammer's effect could be seen.

As the Minotaur swung it forward, it seemed to impact with the air itself, coming to a halt. But while the hammer stopped, it force did not. The air cracked and a small explosion could be heard, as a mass of force was shot through the air, soon reaching Eiro.

Obviously, the Demon could have easily dodged this, but he was doubtful about whether or not this attack was going to stop anytime soon, which would have put the people sleeping behind him in danger.

Immediately, Eiro also started working on another barrier, so that he could stop the sound from this fight that was about to unfold from escaping this area.

But then, the impact hit Eiro's barrier, and he quickly realized that a normal barrier wouldn't be able to hold out against the minotaur's attack, and he didn't have the time to create a barrier that could right now.

Eiro ground his teeth and started to re-arrange his magic circuits to create a specific spell on his left arm, while he removed his cloak and instead placed his armor onto his body. He fused shadows with his horns and made them press down onto his head as he pulled the armor's hood onto them. This way, if he was caught by someone, then he could still be recognized as Eiro.

After all, everyone here knew what it looked like. Later, he could just make the excuse that the mask was some sort of magic tool that helped him create magic circles faster or something like that. For now, Eiro kicked off the ground and shot forward as the magic circuit in his left arm had been properly rearranged.

The Demon watched as the Minotaur once more swung the hammer around. Once more, Eiro couldn't dodge, but luckily, he was fast enough to be close enough to try and counter the hammer. He activated the rearranged magic circuit, which created a small, compressed, circular barrier that fused with his armor's built-in shield on his left arm. With as much precision as he could muster in this moment, Eiro changed the course of the hammer and diverted the attack down into the water, causing a large explosion.

Surely, this explosion would have alerted someone, so Eiro should probably try to finish this quickly. With his other arm, Eiro grabbed the Minotaur's horn and pulled its head down, before wrapping his legs around its throat to try and put pressure onto it while Eiro pulled his dagger out of his treasury to try and end this quickly.

However, before he could, Eiro felt a deep impact all the way in his bones, as if the Minotaur was letting out force through its skin. It penetrated so deeply into him that his muscles tensed up awkwardly, before the Demon was thrown off into the water. And then, he could see the giant hammer head right for him.

He tried to dodge out of the way through the water using magic, but it didn't do him much good. The impact of the hammer with the water itself caused a deep incave that pulled Eiro into it before the watter crashed back onto that one spot.

This actually damaged Eiro a bit... and he didn't like that at all.