DEMON'S VIRTUE

The librarian let go of the book in her hands, as it slowly floated down onto the table in front of her. She was completely and utterly perplexed at what just happened. For the past few hours, she had told Eiro random pages in random books, and he had been able to perfectly copy them over onto random notes of paper.

And it wasn't just the content of the books, it was everything. The size of each letter, the spacing inbetween the words and lines. Even the small splotches of ink on the page that came to be through issues during the book's print. He had been able to perfectly remember every tiny detail of these books. Of course, that showed her that this man was not only worthy of passing the test she was introduced to by the owner of the tower of books, but he most certainly was the one who would pass the rest of the tests that would be given at the actual tower as well.

But despite that being the case, despite this fact filling her with complete and utter excitement, she wasn't able to say anything, leaving this room in stunned silence. Slowly, Eiro turned around and swam over toward the box that the librarian placed down on her desk just earlier. He grabbed it and opened it up on his own, grabbing the small coin inside of it.

"I'm guessing that silence means that this is mine." He said with a grin on his face, and the librarian looked back confused for a few moments, "H-Huh? Right... right, yes! Yes, absolutely! Please, take it!" She exclaimed, quickly swimming over to his side, "You definitely deserve it! I'm sorry for wrongly judging you." The librarian pointed out, and Eiro simply smiled back at her, following it up with a quick wink.

"There's no need for you to worry about such things. Now I just need to figure out where the tower actually is, right?" Eiro asked her, and without a moment's hesitation, she nodded her head. With a smile on his face, the Demon turned his head toward Nelli. They were already communicating telepathically, "How do maps work in this realm? This is not a flat plane like I'm used to." He explained, and Nelli seemed to think about this question for a few moments.

"Honestly? No clue. Never really bothered with maps. I barely spent a couple years of my life on this plane." She explained, making it impossible for the Demon to not let out a loud groan. He turned toward the librarian instead, "Sorry, but could you explain to me how maps work in this realm? I have a rough idea of what I need to do to figure out how to find the tower, but I need to know that first."

The librarian raised her brow surprised, "Is that so? Well, they are quite simple, actually. You see, in this realm, everything of note is quite far away from each other, so our maps tend to stretch over quite a length. But in return, we have different maps for each 'layer' of this plane." She explained. It seemed as if she was aware of the way that maps worked in other realms, or at least, in the central material plane, "With the monarchs' castle acting as layer '0', of course. This city would be on layer 6, and each is a thousand meters high. And then, it is quite simple. The more denser the water, the darker it is on the map. The major stars are marked down as well, if you ever wish for some extra light."

Eiro raised his brow curiously. If that was the case, then this wouldn't be too tough. Except if... "So... do the maps change over time? I know that in other planes, the terrain of the world tends to change, so how is it here?"

"Change? Not by much, if at all. Certain areas might shift their position a little over the years, but it is never by much. Usually, maps only need to be updated once a century, but the difference is usually minuscule."

Letting out a sigh of relief that Eiro didn't have to figure out patterns of how the terrain changed even in this realm, he started to look around the library. A replica had already been constructed within his mind, and the duplicates were busy at work trying to figure out the map using the help of the seemingly random patterns on the coin. And meanwhile, he himself just started taking a closer look at the different atlases that he had found. Of course, he had acknowledged them, but he mostly just glanced at the pages. Since there wasn't much language to be pulled from these books, the duplicates weren't putting partiuclar focus on them either. But now, he should at least have a rough idea of what the world looks like. That way, the duplicates could fill in certain gaps more easily when they started finding patterns, and he would be able to head out on his search for the tower rather quickly as well.

"Then for now, I will be taking my leave." Eiro said, lightly smiling at the librarian. He felt like finally breathing some fresh water, honestly. After being in this same building for the past few days, he had started feeling a little bit stuffy. Rather, he really just felt like going out of the town altogether to just let himself float around a little while napping for a while until the whole map situation had been figured out.

"Wait! I- I suggest staying in here as you try to search for hints of the tower of book's location... this space might help you a bit?" The librarian suggested, and Eiro simply scoffed as he swam toward the door, "Don't worry, I already know that the map is part of this building. But I've already got everything I need up here." He pointed out, tapping at the side of his head. The doors opened in front of him, as the Demon swam outside.

"Tsk..." Eiro clicked his tongue a bit annoyed, crossing his legs while staring out the window beside him. The young man sitting across from him looked at the Demon and somewhat nervously asked, "My Lord? Is... is something wrong?"

Eiro glanced at him, and quickly shook his head, "Nothing, Jyoti. It just seems that I am losing a slight competition with myself."

Confused at what this meant, Jyoti slightly tilted his head to the side. Sarius scoffed a bit, glancing up from the book in his hands, "Don't worry about it, he's like that sometimes. Although, he's been a bit more... well, fiery ever since he got here."

"You try being made of literal fire without being an absolute dick." Eiro sighed, and Sarius looked at his contractor with a frown, "I'm a spirit, I'm made from the literally purest of fire."

"Yeah, which is why you're the literally purest dick I know." The Demon replied, before Sarius clicked his tongue, "Walked right into that one, didn't I?"

"Yup. What are you doing reading, anyway? Never seen you even touch a book before."

"Oh, I wonder why. It's not because all the books you have are as large as my body over there. And it's also definitely not because every time I try to touch one of your book it goes up in flames. There's a reason you never summon me while you're in a library. Well, not 'you', the original, of course. You're just a fake." Sarius pointed out, grinning as if he had won. The Demon slightly turned his head to look at the Salamander, watching as he suddenly disappeared, dropping the book he had been holding in the process. It only took a few seconds until he came back, his head letting off a large amount of steam and smoke as his fiery hair reformed, "So, what did the 'original' say? I'm just a fake, so remember to explain it to me in as much detail as possible."

"..." Sarius silently picked up his book and continued to read, while Eiro looked at Jyoti, who was clearly more than just confused about what was going on, "Everything alright?" Eiro asked, and Jyoti immediately nodded his head.

"Of course, my lord! Everything is great! I... I never would have thought that I could ride in such a carriage!" He exclaimed, and Eiro simply smiled at him. It seemed like carriages were rather rare around here, so the original Eiro had to create a duplicate of his carriage in the central material plane while fusing it with fire magic. That way, it could be pulled into the plane of water fairly simply. Of course, just flying would be much, much faster, but considering that Eiro picked up Jyoti and the piglet, he couldn't just do that. He wanted to be accommodating to the man and the creature that were going to become the first two actually 'living' servants of his, at least if everything worked out alright. Once he had the duplicated carriage, Eiro simply tamed a few magic beasts strong enough to pull it the same way he manipulated Jyoti and the piglet, and then that was that. For a moment, they considered duplicating Lugo, but somehow, creating an empty shell that just looked like Lugo to then command like a servant didn't feel right. Eiro would never do that with his children or other close friends either, after all.

But even then... maybe he should have come up with a better solution. Because although this Eiro was much closer to the Tower of Books in this plane than the one in the plane of water, that one could simply swim through the water without a second thought, and at incredible speeds. At this point, only luck would decide which of the two would win.