DEMON'S VIRTUE

Chapter 613: Decision

Anura looked down at his hands as if he was seeing them for the first time. With just a slight twist of his body, he spiraled around in the water, and Eiro watched him curiously. He wanted to know what this sudden change felt like to a servant. Until now, all of his servants gained thought for the first time when he created them, but this time it was different. He actually had a way to compare the before and after now.

“How is it?” he asked bluntly, and Anura tried to orient himself toward the Demon again. He slowly lowered his head, placing one of his hands onto his heart, and the other right below it. It seemed this was the way of ‘bowing’ to others to the magical people of this realm, “It is greater than anything I could have every imagined, my lord.”

“Could you try and put it into words for me?” Eiro asked, his curiosity not sated in the slightest by that vague reply, but Anura quickly shook his head, “There is no way that there are any words in this language that could describe the way I am feeling right now. And if there are, then I do not know them. It’s as if I had just seen a brand new color, outside of blue, green and red. Indescribable, but beautiful.” 

At the very least, Anura was trying. But clearly, due to the sudden rush of power and new sensory input, the world around him must seem absolutely stunning in every way. Like some sort of drug-induced ecstacy. Although, it should probably settle down once he got used to it some more. Or at least, Eiro hoped so. If Anura stayed like this, it might get a little bit annoying. So, Eiro went for something else instead. He grabbed Anura’s hand and placed it onto his chest.

“In that case, pour your personal magic into my heart. I’ll settle for that description for now, since I’ll end up figuring it out sooner or later anyway.” Eiro said, and although the Anura from just a few minutes ago would have certainly been quite hesitant, this reborn version of him did what Eiro told him without even a single moment’s hesitation.

Eiro could feel the magic flow into his heart. Or rather, he could feel it flow toward it. Before this quite unique flavor of magic managed to reach the heart, it was absorbed by the spirit gateway, being pulled in by the original Eiro. Only he was capable of really absorbing this magic, after all.

— 

In the central elemental realm, Eiro could feel the magic flow out of his chest, as if trying to escape into the air. He was able to control it well enough for now, though. Even if it was uniquely fitted to Anura, it was still magic based on water magic, which was the element that Eiro had his highest affinity to.

He pulled the magic into his body and compressed it down, keeping it safe in an area near his heart for now, until the influx of magic stopped. Anura’s mana was starting to become depleted relatively quickly.

With a satisfied expression, a mental duplicate of him started analyzing the magic in detail, trying to figure out its properties before Eiro would start absorbing it later.

For now, he was busy with something else. He had some guests to receive. Those two were being led through the building by one of the manor’s disguised monster butlers, and he was waiting for them in his study. Before long, the door opened up, and the two young siblings stepped into the room, side by side.

Noma was trembling out of anxiety, while Naomi stood next to him, scratching her arm out of hunger. Even though they clearly tried to clean up properly, Eiro could smell the blood underneath Naomi’s fingernails, and the pulsating of the veins close to the wounds she scratched open on her arm and neck.

“Did you make your decision?” Eiro asked immediately, and Noma nodded his head, “Yes, she-“

“I want to hear it from her.” The demon interrupted. This was a life-altering decision to be made here. Even if Noma only wanted the best for his sister, Eiro just had to be sure beforehand that Naomi made her own choice. If they chose the sealing tattoos, then her compliance with this plan was necessary. While it was possible to seal the monstrosity away even against her will, it would require a much, much more complex pattern. Eiro wanted to cover as little of Naomi’s body in the tattoos as possible. 

“I-I… I w-want the… I want this gone…” Naomi replied, “F-For good…” despite her quiet, stuttering voice, her will came across cleary.

“Alright, good. So, before we start, I want to show you something. Come in, Kanto.” Eiro said, waiting for the butler that had guided the two of them to step into the room as well. He closed the door behind himself, and looked at Eiro, who simply gave him a nod. Without any further ado, the head-butler slightly bowed forward, as his transformation from a human disappeared, and he turned back into a kobold.

Noma and Naomi stepped away startled, but the butler simply looked at them for a few moments, “There is no need for you to worry. My monstrosity is manageable due to my Lord’s help.”

“Monst- That’s what you told us about, right? The thing that’s doing all of this to Naomi?” Noma asked, quickly turning his head toward the demon, who replied with a simple nod, “Right, that’s exactly it. I wanted to show him to you, to prove that it’s something I can handle. Since I’m sure that, throughout the process itself, it might seem like I cannot.” Eiro explained, and then looked back at Kanto, “You may leave.”

“As you wish.” The butler said, quickly turning around and leaving the room in a dignified manner. Noma was still confused, but at the very least, part of his anxiety had dissipated. He felt like, maybe, this would all end up fine, “And, there is another aspect that I wanted to talk to you about. For this to work, we will need Naomi’s taboo to ‘flare up’. To be able to seal away as much of it as possible to let the rest be suppressed completely, we need her to… well… try to feed on someone.”

Noma’s eyes widened as he stared across the room, “What do you mean? You can’t… you can’t let her just eat someone…” 

“I didn’t say she should eat someone. I just said she should feed on someone,” Eiro replied quickly, “Someone she can bury her teeth in without even drawing blood.”

As Eiro said these words, the door opened up once more, and in the frame, nearly filling it out completely with his large body, stood Rudy. The moment the siblings saw their friend, their hearts practically skipped a few beats. Noma quickly pulled his sister behind him, trying to hide her from him, “Rudy! What are you doing here?”

“…This is my house?” He said with a slight sigh, bitterly looking at Naomi, whose body was still peeking out behind her brother’s, “You don’t need to hide, I already know everything anyway.”

Rudy walked up to his friends, placing his hand onto Noma’s shoulder, “And don’t worry, I don’t really care about things like that. Beyond that… I could already guess that something was going on with you two.”

“But… but we made sure to hide everything, how could you…?” Noma replied, shaking his head in disbelief, but Rudy scratched his cheek awkwardly, “Growing up with a father like mine, you start to pick up on that kind of stuff. I didn’t know what was wrong exactly, I just knew that something was going on.”

“And in the first place, Rudy would have found out sooner or later anyway. Full-body tattoos aren’t easy to hide, especially considering his brother and sister had them until not too long ago.” Eiro added, before Noma snapped his head toward him, “Wait, didn’t you say she would be able to hide it?”

“Yeah, in day-to-day life. But as close as those two are, it wouldn’t take long until-“

“Dad, please, just be quiet, alright?” Rudy interrupted Eiro while trying to hide that his cheeks turned a bright red, “Either way, when my father told me what was going on and that you would need my help, there’s no way I could just stand back and not do anything.”

Noma awkwardly looked at his friend, shaking his head, “No, Rudy… I know you’re tough and all, but Naomi, she… she’s stronger than normal, because of the taboo. You wouldn’t-“

Quickly, Rudy interrupted his friend by grabbing the letter-opener laying on Eiro’s desk and stabbing it onto his own forehead. Of course, instead of injuring himself, the blade snapped in two, and he looked at his friends with a smile, “Don’t worry, ‘tough’ doesn’t even begin to describe me.”

With a confident expression, Rudy towered over his friends, who looked back at him, filled with trust, even if they still couldn’t really follow what was going on.

“Rudy…” Eiro muttered with a wry smile, “That letter-opener was a gift…”

“Ah… sorry about that, I just wanted to show them that they wouldn’t be able to do anything to me, you know?” Rudy explained awkwardly, when Eiro let out a deep sigh, “Right, right. For now, just explain the situation to them, I’ll have to get started on the ink.” The Demon said as he stood up and walked toward the door. Making the ink would be faster in his demon form, so he didn’t want to make it here. As such, he chose to leave these three alone in here for now, so that they had time to talk about everything that was going to happen later.