DEMON'S VIRTUE

Eiro soon returned to the ship after he finished playing around with the Ace of Swords. As one would expect, explosive sounds from that reached this place as well. He couldn't expect to basically take a chunk out of the ocean without anyone noticing at all, considering all the noise he made in the process. Most of the sailors on the ship were looking over the edge toward where the noise came from, nervous that it was a sign of some sort of attack, or a monster that was slowly approaching them.

The passengers on the ship were not bothered in the slightest, though. They knew that it was Eiro playing around with one of his new cards. Stealthily, the Demon landed on the ship and made his way toward the area reserved for the passengers. This ship was a lot larger than the one that they took before, so it had a lot more pleasant parts about it like this. It was basically just one larger room where they could sit around and talk all together without having to be on the deck of the ship, surrounded by the sailors.

Eiro stepped inside and closed the door behind him, seeing that everyone turned toward him, "That was you, right?" Krog asked, and Eiro slightly grinned, "Yeah, it was. And let me tell you, it was fun. Like, really fun."

.

"...Can you show us in the mountains near the monster village?" James suggested with a slight smile and a raised brow, "I'm really curious about it."

"More than that! Dad, can you copy it and give me one?" Arc asked curiously, and Eiro turned his head, locking eyes with him, "If I wanted to see this ship go under, then maybe. We'll figure all that out later. Listen, the cards are dangerous, especially those of the suit of swords. Armodeus is already trying to figure out how to make artificial version of it, so we might be able to figure something out. But no, I won't be giving you a complete duplicate." The Demon said bluntly, before Arc clicked his tongue and looked away, "Dammit... but you said it's fun!"

"It is, but it also ripped apart my body whenever I used it. So you should be the last person to have it." Eiro also pointed out, something that Arc seemed to understand a little bit more, before the Demon turned toward Rudy, "But actually, I might let you do it. It's not like you can hurt anyone. And you earned it."

Rudy raised his brows surprised, "Really? You'd let me use it?"

"Sure. If the feedback wasn't an issue, I'd let the others try it out as well. But you know, not now. We'll figure out a good place for it later." Eiro said with a smile, placing his hand on his son's shoulder.

"Urgh... then... at least make some duplicates of us!" Arc asked a bit annoyed, and Eiro scoffed, "I haven't even tried it out on myself yet."

"What, you scared your clone is going to turn evil and attack you?" Koperia laughed, and Eiro slowly turned toward her, "In... the original story, that's what happened."

Koperia raised her brow and sighed, "Eiro, those are stories, they're not real."

"Yeah, but so far, all of the stories were accurate toward the costs and effects of the cards. Not fully, sure, but the things that were in the book were true in one way or another." Eiro explained briefly. Curiously, Clementine looked at her father, "What is the story for that card though? I don't remember..." She admitted, even though she had read the book sometime before. Clementine was always the one to focus more on the illustrations that came with the stories than the written content itself.

Eiro sat down and pulled out the card, looking at it as it laid in his hand, "A young man is hired and exploited for his work at the harbor. He has to do things that a dozen other men should be doing, all on his own, while those dozen men just sit back and relax. Then one day, the Arcane Dealer appears before him, and gives him a hand-sized golden card. When he held it in his hand, it turned into a small, handheld mirror. He looked inside, and saw his own reflection. But when he blinked, he saw double. Another version of himself appeared behind him. It reacted to his commands, doing all that he wanted it to. He made it help with his work. More and more, he kept creating doubles at dawn, making them disappear at dusk. Until all of a sudden, one of them wasn't there in the evening anymore. The man didn't think much of it, thinking that he just didn't count right when he made them in the morning." Eiro explained, briefly retelling the story in his own words.

"And then the double that ran away became evil?" Clementine asked curiously, but Koperia let out a slight sigh as she shook her head, "Evil is not the right word here, now is it? The man had used it to do all his work, treating it even worse than he had ever been treated. As if it was a slave. The double, through its malice, broke free, and followed the original until he was sleeping. And that night, the double killed the original while he was sleeping." She finished the story for Eiro, who quickly nodded.

"Exactly. So clearly, the doubles have their own mind. I know that I wouldn't like being a 'fake' that exists to do another's bidding, so why would my double?"

"Right, but also, you're not really like others in many different ways beside that." Ariella added, "Rather than fighting yourself here, putting everyone else in danger, wouldn't you just try to... you know, talk about it first?"

Eiro looked back at his lover in thought, before turning the card in his hand into a mirror, "You do have a point." He said, quickly trying to use the mirror to create a duplicate of himself. Slowly, a mass of magic came pouring out of the mirror and dropped onto the ground in front of him. It grew in size, and turned into the duplicate Eiro.

The two of them looked at each other, and the original let out a simple, "Huh."

"Huh indeed." The duplicate replied, "This is pretty interesting."

"I don't think that's how it's usually supposed to work."

"I doubt it." The other Eiro added, while everyone else in the room looked at him confused, "The hell is going on now?" Arc asked with a wry smile, and the two Eiros quickly looked at him.

"We share a mind." They said in tandem, before the original said, "It's like... we are separate, but also not. He can think on his own, and so can I, but we share all those thoughts."

"I can hear his, he can hear mine." The other finished, before the original looked at the double, "That being the case, you-"

"No, I don't mind this existence ending. I am you anyway, so." The double replied, and the real one shrugged, "Cool." And with that, he made the double disappear again.

The others looked at him confused, not sure what just happened, so Eiro explained it a bit more, "So basically... it was like I was thinking in parallel. But each parallel mind had its own body." Eiro explained quickly, "The weirdest thing was that I could see directly out of his eyes, and hear what he heard, so. It's neat, though."

Koperia stood up and approached the demon, looking at the card, "Normally... the double is basically supposed to be an empty shell until commanded otherwise, so how the hell did that happen?"

"I don't know, my legendary skill? My memory abilities? Probably a combination of that. But I don't mind, really." Eiro pointed out, finally relaxed to know that there was practically no way for his doubles to suddenly go rogue. And immediately, he tried to figure out some fun ideas to help him train.

"Hm... do it with me, make a double of me." Koperia said, and Eiro slowly looked up, "You sure about that?"

"Yeah, I'm sure. Just do it. I want to see." She said immediately, and Eiro shrugged. He looked at the mirror, and focused on creating a double of Koperia. Another mass of magic poured out of the mirror and soon, a double of Koperia stood there in front of them. She looked exactly the same, but she was just standing there, barely just breathing, without a thought behind her eyes.

"That's... weird." Koperia muttered, "Can I kill it and turn it into an undead, I wonder..?"

"Could you turn the doubles on the island into undead?"

"Right, yes, I could. Interesting... Eiro, I need to borrow that mirror for some experiments." Koperia said immediately, trying to stretch her hand out toward it, but Eiro just rolled his eyes, "Right, as if that's happening."

"Hold on... so it's possible to duplicate anything with it, right?" Arc asked curiously, and Eiro nodded, "Yes, as long as it's small enough. I probably wouldn't be able to duplicate this whole ship, for example."

"Hm... then you can duplicate money as well, right?"

"Arc, we're not committing crimes with this, we have enough money already." The Demon said bluntly, as Arc looked at his father intensely, "But it would be so easy!"

The Demon just scoffed in response, "You know what would also be easy? Asking the captain to stop at the nearest harbor and leaving you there."