Demon's Virtue

Eiro walked up in front of the stableboy and deeply stared into his eyes, "Who told you to search through the carriage?" The Demon asked with a clear tone, and the stableboy simply took a step back and shook his head.

"N-Nobody did, it was out of my own curiosity!" He exclaimed, and Eiro sighed deeply. That was obviously a lie. And Eiro didn't even have to analyze the boy's physical changes to figure that out.

"I'm going to give you one more chance." Eiro said, "Tell me, who is it that told you to search through the carriage?" The Demon took a step closer to the young man in front of him, the two spirits just floating over his shoulders. The stableboy looked around and soon saw a deep glare from him as well. Out of nervosity, the boy cracked.

"L-Lord Birdrick! It was Lord Birdrick! I'm... I'm sorry, I didn't have a choice, I..." He admitted fearfully, and Eiro slowly turned toward Solomon, "Birdrick? Let me guess, it's that Jordan guy from before, right?"

"Yes." Solomon replied quickly, "Jordan Arsit Birdrick. My royal advisor. He's a good man, but his stance on things is quite different to mine. And you can't deny that there's a reason for it, can you? For many who have lost friends or family through the Monster King, your teacher was someone that enabled exactly that Monster King to attack them." Solomon explained, and Eiro slowly nodded his head.

He guessed it made sense logically, even if it was still really fucking annoying, "Did he tell you to look for anything in particular?" Eiro asked as he looked down at the stableboy.

"I was supposed to find anything that proved how wi-wicked you truly are. No matter what..." The boy replied, and Eiro scratched the back of his neck, "Hm... There's nothing incriminating in there, really. A couple weapons, some foodstuff... The regular, really." Eiro pointed out, and the stableboy immediately nodded his head, "Th-Then I will inform L-Lord Birdrick of this immediately!" The boy exclaimed, and Eiro nodded his head.

"Good, do that." The Demon said, and quickly let the stableboy run off, while Solomon looked at him with a deep frown, "Why did you let him go? Such action can not be allowed, no matter what." The King pointed out, and Eiro sighed a bit in response.

"Obviously not. But it's not the kid's fault. Look at how terrified he was. If you want to punish anyone, then punish that Jordan guy, but not a kid that he forced to work for him." Eiro pointed out, and Solomon slowly raised his brows in surprise.

"You have quite a weak spot for children, don't you?"

"Children, and those forced for work." Eiro pointed out as he slowly looked over at Gondos with a light smile on his face, "I experienced that part myself, so."

Immediately, Solomon once more looked at Eiro with confusion, while the Demon told the children to get some of their clothes out of the carriage, together with whatever they needed to practice their skills. "Forced to work? Eiro, were you..." Solomon asked, and Eiro turned toward him with a shrug, "If you want to ask me if I was a slave before, then basically yes. I mean, it was the thing that brought me here, otherwise I would have died during those huge monster-horde attacks like seven or eight years ago."

"Monster Horde..? Wait, were you in the Holy Empire at the time of those attacks?"

"Yup, I was. I actually saw [The Sun]'s huge fireball attack a couple of times." Eiro explained, "And soon after, I managed to escape the slavery and met all these children." The Demon told him, somewhat nostalgically.

After a bit of silence, Solomon looked at Eiro curiously, "Eiro... would you like to hold some public mock-fights with the royal guard?"

With a surprised expression, Eiro looked at him with his arms crossed, "What? Why would I want to do that?"

"It's part of an idea I have that can maybe make Jordan trust you. As I said, he's a good man, and an even better strategist. I will obviously punish him because of this, but I do not want to lose him. He is someone I would even call a friend, after all." Solomon explained. With a bit of thought, Eiro looked forward in thought and then slowly nodded his head.

"Fine. Under a few conditions, of course. One, I am allowed to keep wearing my mask, cloak, and glove as I am right now. Two, you let me choose who I want to fight. Three, the fights happen the day before we can move to the manor." Eiro said, and the King didn't need to think too long.

"Of course, the first and third sound reasonable. But about the second, I am not sure if I can allow that. Part of my plan is to let you fight very specific people, so that would be rather counterproductive."

"Fine. Then I'll trust your judgement." Eiro pointed out, and then looked over at the puppet, "Solomon, it's fine if we bring it into the castle, right? I want it to keep guard of the kids while I'm off."

"'Off'? Where exactly do you want to go?" Rudy asked surprisedly, "We just got here..."

"Ah, I just want to head down to the Guild and see if I can have a message sent to Tom, and see if I can find anything interesting to fight to level up a bit." Eiro explained, "A little training here and there can never hurt, right? Also, I need to get the things for..." Eiro started, slowly turning his eyes toward Charles, "...for Solomon's head. That thing, you know?"

"Ah... Right. You'll be back tonight though, right?" Rudy then asked. The Demon slowly nodded his head in response without hesitation, "Yeah of course, don't worry about that."

"Then I'll come help you bring everything inside and then I'm going to head off for a bit." Eiro told them, and swiftly took some of the heavier bags from Clementine and Sammy, "Lugo, wake up you lazy fuck, we're heading off in a bit."

With a loud groan, the stag did as told and stretched out a bit as he stood up, just looking at Eiro with an annoyed expression, "Hey, don't look at me like that. You were here, and still let the kid into the carriage. You're on a diet from now on." The demon said with a deep glare, and Lugo immediately replied with a loud bellow of disapproval.

"Shut it and wait here." Eiro said with a deep glare. He followed Solomon and Charles into the castle again and helped the children settle into their rooms. After that, he made sure that Leon was feeling good enough that he could sleep a bit if he needed to, because Eiro didn't want him to freak out and suddenly lose control over his unique skills. And on top of that, Eiro also made sure that Avalin stayed around Sammy and Clementine the whole time. She sometimes wanted to randomly take off her contacts once they started feeling a little uncomfortable to her.

"I'll be back later. The puppet is still here as well. And just head toward the window and call out my name if anything should happen, I'll try to pay attention to this place especially. I'll be back later." Eiro told them, and then made his way over toward the door. He stepped out and rushed along the hallway before he reached the door that led to the stables again. There, Lugo was already waiting for him. Eiro quickly climbed onto the stag's back and rode him toward the castle's gates, where the guards swiftly let him out toward the streets.

It seemed like the people that were pursuing them before were now gone, so Eiro chose to just leisurely make his way over toward the first place he wanted to get to. The Adventurer's Guild.

He wasn't entirely sure where it was, but it didn't really seem hard to find either, despite how loud it was in this part of town. As he was riding through the town, he was able to spot some pretty interesting shops that might even have the ingredients that they needed for that potion.

Eiro could already hear the slime core complain from inside of the bottle in the satchel, but the Demon quickly chose to ignore him. He was told the list of things that they needed beforehand, so he had it all in his mind.

There were actually some that he had never heard of before, though, so Eiro should head off to some bookstore or pharmacist later on to see if he could find some information on those herbs or monsters, or whatever they were.

But for now, the Demon really just wanted to contact a man that he was sure he could actually trust. The Adventurer's Guild receptionist Tom. He hadn't revealed any information about Eiro after he basically massacred a couple dozen people in front off the whole town, so he had to thank him for that somehow.

Eiro soon found the local adventurer's guild and rode Lugo over there without hesitation. The Demon jumped off of Lugo's back and stepped up to the large door. It was actually large enough for Lugo to fit through, and this wasn't exactly the kind of place where the Demon wanted to leave his familiar alone.

Especially not after finding out that Lugo apparently wasn't just a simple stag, but rather something very, very different, even if he couldn't exactly say what he was.

Eiro pushed the doors open and stepped into the large space. It was pretty loud in here. After all, most adventurer's guilds doubled as a meeting and hangout spot for adventurers, so this place was the guild, a bar, and a restaurant at the same time.

The Demon swiftly stepped through the room and made his way to a receptionist that didn't seem too busy.

"Hello, how can I help you today?" The young man behind the counter asked with a smile, "Also, just to make sure, but is that Stag your familiar? Otherwise I please ask you to leave him outside." He explained, and Eiro swiftly placed his hand onto Lugo's forehead, making the familiar-mark appear there with a dim glow.

"Yep, he is." Eiro replied, "And I would like to send a message to another guild. That's possible, right?"

"Of course it is. I'll be right back with a form to fill out with information of the recipient and guild in question." The employee said with a smile on his face, and Eiro just nodded his head as he slowly turned around. It seemed like the eyes of the people in here were on him. Especially of those that pursued him before.

But there was one more issue here at the moment. There were two people in here that Eiro hadn't seen in a fair while. Krog and Jess, James' companions.