DEMON'S VIRTUE

Eiro looked down at the young man that was so tightly holding onto the magic beast he was trying to protect this whole time. As the Demon stretched his arms out to try and grab the piglet, the young man quickly pulled away, staring up at Eiro confused.

"Wh-What are you doing?" He asked with a deep frown, speaking in Pirock. Raising his brow, Eiro looked down at him, "Do you speak common?"

However, the young man just stared up at him confused. Looking him up and down more closely, Eiro did notice that his clothes were in a far worse condition compared to others, and he was quite dirty in general. He also had some scars scattered all over his body that clearly didn't come from combat.

Eiro turned to look at Sarius, "Is it normal for people here to not be able to speak common?"

"Erm... I don't think so, but it happens, I guess? And well, it doesn't seem like the kid's from around here, so he might have grown up in a place where they only speak Pirock." The Salamander explained, squatting down in front of the young man to get a closer look at him.

"Hm, alright then." Eiro replied with a slight frown, and then quickly switched to speaking Pirock instead, "Do you understand me now?"

Quickly, the young man nodded his head, and Eiro continued, "Alright, then let's try this again. Let me take a look at that pig."

"What do you want with him?" The boy asked, and Eiro sighed, "It's injured, so give it to me for a moment. We healed you, we can do the same with this one."

Startled by what Eiro said, the young man looked down at the creature that he was holding, trying to see any wounds on its body. But when he did, Eiro quickly pulled the piglet out of his arms, which wasn't particularly hard to do, "Hm, alright then." The Demon muttered, quickly healing the few bruises on the piglet's body that he had found. Of course, as he did, he also did something else, which was to exert his influence over this being through eye-contact. Magic beasts were incredibly responsive to matters of the mind. To an extent, it made it harder for influence to truly affect them, but at the same time, it made it easier for them to actually have the influence placed onto them. And a simple piglet like this, while it had the natural senses of a magic beast, was quickly overwhelmed by Eiro's influence carried through his mana into its mind. It wasn't powerful, intelligent, or sensitive enough to be able to fight back against what Eiro was doing, however. This way, in just a moment, Eiro had turned this creature into a willing and devoted follower.

The piglet snuggled itself into Eiro's arms as he was holding onto it, startling the young man even more, "H-Huh? But- how- he normally doesn't like others..."

"I don't know, I'm quite likeable, I would say." Eiro pointed out, followed by a scoff caused by suppressed laughter right behind him, "Is there something you want to share, Sarius?"

The Spirit leaned back against the wall he was standing next to, and looked at his contractor with a light smirk, "What? No, of course not. You're hella likeable, absolutely."

Letting out a slightly annoyed sigh, Eiro turned back toward the young man that was still sitting on the ground, as if he didn't realize that he had been healed. Eiro held onto the piglet with two of this hands, and used his other two hands to pull the kid up, "What's your name?" He asked quickly, and the young man looked at him surprised for a moment. It seemed like nobody had ever asked him what his name was before.

"...Jyoti, my name is Jyoti." He replied after a few moments, and Eiro gently smiled at him, "Nice to meet you, Jyoti. I'm Eiro, and this here is my friend Sarius."

"Erm..." Jyoti looked past Eiro, curiously staring at the Salamander leaning against the wall while making a bored expression, "Is he... is he a spirit?"

"That he is. He's an actually pretty powerful Salamander." Eiro explained, "I'm his contractor. I'm actually from the central material plane, you know?"

Jyoti opened his eyes wide, "The central material plane? Then how are you not burning up?"

"Ah, that, good question. I'm a pretty skilled mage, so I was able to turn my body into a mass of fire magic to come here." He explained with a slightly smug tone of voice, "But that's not important right now. Tell me, why were you protecting this piglet to the extent where you got hurt by others?"

"...Because it didn't do anything wrong... They said it was a monster, but I know that's not true! It's my friend!" Jyoti exclaimed with complete and utter passion. Eiro was barely able to suppress the broad grin on his face, "Is that so? You know, I've been trying to look for someone as passionate and kind as you. People like you can do anything they put their mind to." The Demon explained, placing his hand on top of Jyoti's head. He began to feed him compliments, with his voice empowered by his mana and charisma. He was doing the same thing as he did with that piglet, trying to exert his influence over him. Of course, it was a bit harder than even with people on the central material plane, but after a short while, it should work. He should be able to fully brainwash this kid, no issue.

"Hahh... Finally." Eiro let out a deep sigh as he placed the book back into the shelf in front of him. He had finally managed to read all of the books here in the library.

"That took you a while, huh?" Nelli asked, appearing right next to the Demon, floating through the water with a relaxed expression, "Didn't the other one and Sarius finish, what, two days ago?"

"Yes, roughly." Eiro replied, a little annoyed, "But this library is five times larger than the one they read through. And more importantly, Sarius could actually speak the language of that plane, quite unlike what a certain someone could do."

"...It's not my fault I can't read Aquarian..." Nelli replied while turning her head away, and Eiro let out a slight sigh, "Right, sure. Don't worry about it. I'll figure something out." The Demon said, slightly stretching as he swam over toward the librarian.

She looked back at Eiro curiously. Eiro asked if they had books in common, so she was sure that he couldn't speak Aquarian, but despite that, he had spent multiple days here in this space just reading through all the books.

The librarian looked at the Demon, and spoke to him. Just that she was speaking in Aquarian, meaning that Eiro didn't understand her. However, that didn't stop Eiro from communicating with her. While Nelli may not be able to read Aquarian, she could speak it, meaning that she understood what the librarian just said. As such, through telepathy, she told Eiro what the librarian said, and then translated a response for him. This was a decent way of learning the spoken part of this language as well. Eiro already knew the meaning of the symbols that he read in the book, since the duplicates in the mental library spent plenty of time trying to decode everything that he read, so just by doing this, he was able to connect how certain words were pronounced.

Luckily, there seemed to be a bit of a pattern with the way that words were written that correlated to their pronunciation, so he could already fill in a few dots here and there. Eiro probably had a pretty strong accent, or rather, a weird way of pronouncing certain words, but as long as he could show that he was somewhat proficient in the language, it should be enough for the librarian to truly believe and acknowledge that he read all the books in here.

Of course, he did, but if he couldn't even speak the language, then how was he supposed to convince the librarian that he did? Judging from the questions that the other double was asked in the elemental plane of fire, this one was positive that he would be able to answer the questions pretty easily, though. They weren't tough questions, they were just quite random, that was all.

"You see... the owner of the tower of books asked us to ask those that manage to read all the books in the library some questions. Would you be willing to answer those?" The librarian asked even if sligthly hesitantly, and Eiro immediately nodded his head. He had been waiting for this, after all.

She went to a room in the back and brought out a small box, before pulling some pieces of paper out of it that clearly had the questions written onto them. And so, with the help of Nelli, Eiro answered them bit by bit, increasing his understanding of the language further. Until the librarian placed the notes down, looking directly at Eiro.

"I apologize, but it seems like you have not met the qualifications of the owner of the Tower of Books." The librarian said bluntly, and Eiro looked back at her with a frown, "What do you mean? Did I not answer all the questions?"

"Yes, you did... but that spirit beside you, she has been feeding you the answers, has she not?" She pointed out, and Eiro let out a deep, annoyed sigh, "Urgh... how bothersome. Listen, I really did read all those books, it's just that I can't speak the language on my own. I only learned the written language. She translates the spoken word to me."

"Huh?" The Librarian let out confused, "What do you mean?"

"I mean exactly what I just said. You know what? I saw some empty pieces of paper over there. If you have a pen, then I can prove it to you." Eiro said, and the librarian looked back with a frown. She turned around and grabbed the pieces of crystal paper, placing them on the table in front of her. Eiro smiled at her, and then began to prove that he was worthy of that small coin sitting in the box.