Demon's Virtue

Eiro pulled his two new gloves onto his hands and tried them out by moving his fingers around as far into any direction possible. He was still a bit worried about his left hand. Despite telling Clementine a while ago that he really doesn't mind having lost his right hand, he would still prefer if he didn't have to lose his left hand either.

After all, right now, he couldn't even feel touch in his right wooden hand despite the fact that the connection between him and the prosthetic had risen quite a bit, and that wasn't anything that he really wanted to lose out on.

But it actually seemed like there wasn't any issue with these gloves, as far as the Demon was concerned, at least. Of course, he would still not wear these two gloves whenever he could, but he could easily put them on instantly using his treasury, so it wasn't really an issue.

Beside that, there were the strings that had Avalin's hair woven into them. These were things that Eiro would try to make use of a bit more directly, albeit also in different ways.

For one, he would wrap them around the bases of his daggers. If he did manage to stab the Collector, then it might cause a little bit of damage like that, and Eiro didn't want to lose out on any possible damage for now.

Then, he would keep a few different sets of this string in his pocket. It was enough that Eiro might be able to choke someone out using these, and if he managed to get into that position with the Collector, then it was something that he might have to make use of somehow. And these were good to just have as spares.

Eiro also had a small bag filled with some of Avalin's hair that was simply chopped up into tiny pieces that he could control using Air Magic if Eiro needed to, as if poisoning the air around the collector.

This was kind of risky, however, as it would heavily restrict Eiro as well, although that was a risk that he was willing to take.

But now, there was one last thing that Eiro wanted to gather for this. He honestly didn't particularly like the idea of it, but it was something that would come in more useful than anything else, considering that it was a part of Avalin that held the highest amount of Holy Energy in her small body.

Eiro went over to the room where Sammy and Jess were currently playing with Leon and Avalin, and slowly squatted down next to the young girl while everyone greeted him. Of course, Avalin threw herself at Eiro like she usually did, but Eiro wasn't particularly in the mood for it, considering what he was about to do. It wasn't like he was about to cut off one of her fingers, but it still felt somehow wrong to Eiro to exploit his daughter like that.

"Sammy, could you maybe take Leon and go outside for a bit?" Eiro asked her, and the girl looked at Eiro with a light frown, "Is something wrong?" Sammy asked, and Eiro quickly shook his head.

"Don't worry, it's nothing that bad. I'll explain it to you later." The Demon said reassuredly, and Sammy slowly nodded her head as she took Leon's hand, "Alright then... Leon, come with me, we'll play outside a bit."

Once Sammy and Leon both left the room, Avalin was looking at Eiro curiously, "Daddy, what are we doing now?"

With a smile on his face, Eiro turned over toward his party member, "How about you sit on Jess' lap? It's nothing bad, I just want you to sit there, close your eyes, and listen to my voice the whole time. Yeah?"

With an even more curious expression, Avalin nodded her head and crawled over the ground to sit on Jess' lap as the woman sat there on the ground cross-legged, "Err... Thanks for asking, I guess?"

"Hm? But I didn't ask?" Eiro pointed out as he placed his satchel down in front of him, and Jess turned away with a wry smile, "Nevermind..."

Eiro did exactly that and moved on. He grabbed a small glass bottle out of his satchel and pulled out the cork put on it. With a swift motion of his finger, he pulled the liquid out with Water Magic as he grabbed his daughter's hand and stretched out her arm. He spread the strong-smelling liquid on the inside of her elbow while Jess was helping Avalin keep her eyes shut, since Eiro didn't want her to know what exactly he was doing.

It seemed like the cold, pure alcohol was tickling Avalin, since she was giggling a bit, so Eiro figured it was a good time to get started.

He used the rest of the alcohol to disinfect a small needle and then, with an energetic voice, spoke to Avalin, "Alright, now, we'll play a little bit of a game that Jura taught to me. Well, rather than a game, it's something like... showing how smart you are. First, I want you to squeeze your hand shut as hard as you can, and then you have to cough as hard as you can. And then, you need to remember to stop doing both afterward at the exact same time, alright?"

"And doing that makes me smart?" Avalin asked, and Eiro chuckled quietly in response, "Of course not, you're the smartest little girl there is already. I just want to see how smart you are exactly so that I can brag about it to all my friends, alright?"

With a light grin on her face, Avalin nodded her head while Jess kept her hands tight on the little girl's eyes. She knew exactly what was going on and was trying not to laugh at that ridiculously bad trick.

"Okay! Then you can brag about me all you want!" Avalin exclaimed smugly, and squeezed her hand shut into a fist before taking a deep breath.

And then in a slightly violent fashion, Avalin pushed all that air out of her body again in the form of a few coughs. And those coughs were the perfect distraction for Eiro to push the tip of the needle he was holding into one of Avalin's veins.

The hand-squeezing tensed her muscles up and pushed the vein further to the front, making it easier to see and hit, while the coughing was just something meant to distract Avalin from being poked with the needle.

And immediately afterward, Eiro rubbed his hand through Avalin's hair while praising her for how well she did while drawing some of her blood and putting it into a small empty bottle. After Eiro was done, he used some of Nelli's magic water to heal the small poke-wound.

Eiro put the small bottle of blood away and instead pulled out a small piece of candy as he signaled Jess to let go of Avalin. He placed the candy into her hand with a bright smile, "You did perfect! Here, have this."

"Yaay!" The girl exclaimed with a bright, excited smile, and Eiro just returned it as he kept playing a bit more with Avalin for a few minutes until she finished her candy and he made sure that she was doing okay after having her blood drawn. It seemed like she really didn't notice.

And a few minutes later, Eiro stood back up and let Sammy and Leon back into the room, while Jess came up to the Demon with a confused expression. She pulled Eiro out of the room without a moment's hesitation, "Why did you just do that? What do you need it for?"

Jess looked at the woman with his arms crossed as he leaned up against the wall, "I'll be fighting against an Undead, so I need something with a high amount of Holy Energy in it."

"...Wouldn't Holy Water have been even better?"

"It wouldn't have been. At least not any old Holy Water. The only kind that's stronger than Avalin's pure blood right now is Holy Water blessed directly by a pope. And even then, Avalin's blood may be stronger."

"That's kind of hard to believe... But if that's the case, why didn't you just tell Avalin that you needed some of her blood? Explaining it would have been better than whatever that just was..." Jess pointed out, but Eiro immediately shook his head as he got out the small bottle filled with blood.

"Except it wouldn't have been. While she's alright with the blood of every other person, she's deathly afraid of her own blood. Well, luckily I was able to convince her it's not an issue while it's inside of her body, but other than that, she's still too scared." Eiro explained. He pulled the cork out of the small bottle and pulled a single drop out of it using magic, since he already saw that Jess was incredibly confused over why she was scared of her own blood.

And then, Eiro just let the small drop right onto the back of his hand. The moment that the small drop of blood touched it, the Demon's skin started to hiss loudly as smoke rose off of the wound that was spreading out as Eiro's flesh in that spot was basically rotting away at a fast pace.

Before Jess could even properly react to this, a small white spark was created that soon ignited into pure white flames that would end up spreading out all around Eiro's skin if he didn't stop it.

But luckily, the Demon had a small item he prepared just for this. It was a small piece of smooth, round wood that looked like it basically was just a black rock that was giving off incredibly eery vibes all around it. Eiro rubbed the piece of wood over the wound and immediately extinguished the white flame as the sizzling stopped as well.

"A few years ago, when Avalin started running around as much as she could... She just tripped all of a sudden. She scraped her knee open. Well, it's something that kids just do, right? That's what I thought as well, since I had to treat Arc constantly for these scrapes. But when I went to clean Avalin's knee up, some of her blood got onto my finger and the exact same thing you just saw happened then. For a girl as little as she was, and still is, that is terrifying. What would you think seeing your father literally go up in flames for trying to help you?"

Jess looked back at Eiro with a worried expression, although the wound was already healing pretty well, as all of Eiro's wounds did. He never needed healing all that much.

Either way, Eiro held the black piece of palm-sized wood over toward Jess, who reflexively took a step back, "This here is wood from a tree that grew out of the corpse of a fallen angel. It is practically producing Unholy Energy. While Holy Energy is my bane, Unholy Energy is practically what Holy Energy is to you, something that can heal you. I always have this in my treasury in case something happens with Avalin. We had this at the hut because Jura was working on something that could suppress Avalin's ever-growing Holy Energy from seeping out into the world. You just don't notice it because they're both canceling each other out. I'm afraid that without it, I may not be able to even hug Avalin anymore without going up in flames."