Demon's Virtue

Eiro slowly walked through the hallways of the manor and stepped toward the closest door that he could remember. He tried to not think about anything. Nothing at all. He didn't want to use any of his knowledge, any of his memories, nothing.

The Demon made his way through the snowstorm that was still wreaking havoc throughout this whole town and just walked. He walked and walked, until he simply didn't anymore. Eiro sat down in the snow and pulled his knees toward his chest, "I'll just wait it out... It's just a week... And then, I can figure out how to make them remember me as well..." Eiro whispered quietly to himself as he closed his eyes.

He sat in the snow, dedicated to just sit there for the next week without moving, speaking, or even thinking.

The cold hit his body from all directions as he sat there without a single thought in his mind. He was just trying to meditate, to clear his thoughts and to let nothing happen around him.

But just when Eiro was thinking that, just when he was about to drift off into something close to sleep, Eiro could hear a familiar bellowing-sound in the distance. Of course, Eiro knew who this was, but he didn't want to admit to it. He didn't want to think of this creature's name, race, or even think about why he was there. Because Eiro didn't want to lose anyone that was a part of him as much as Lugo was.

Maybe they sent the Stag out to look for the Demon that ran away, or so he thought. But in the end, Eiro really didn't care that much even if that was the case. He would just let it happen.

Even if Lugo wanted to kill Eiro, it was weirdly fine with him. Better die at the hands of your best friend than at the hands of your worst enemy, or at least that's what Eiro thought.

The Demon slowly opened his eyes and turned his head around to look at the stag, and the moment that he did, he had the stag's wet tongue rubbing over his face, before Lugo proceeded to rub his face against Eiro's. Without hesitation, Lugo curled up around the Demon, as if saying that he wanted to wait alongside his friend.

Eiro slowly turned around toward Lugo and grasped at his fur, before just burying his face in it, in the snow that had become stuck in it, "Thank you, thank you... Thank you for remembering me..." the Demon muttered, shaking as he grasped Lugo's fur even tighter. Eiro was on the brink of breaking for so long. As if someone had taken a hollow glass orb and started evenly sanding down the outside, steadily removing layer over layer, thinning the glass in the process.

The glass orb had come very close to shattering so often over the years, but now... it was like someone took a hammer and smashed it. And then hit down onto the shards again and again and again. It was painful, and Eiro had no idea how he was supposed to handle it.

"Why do you remember me? Please, can you tell me?" Eiro asked with a pleading expression, but Lugo's black, beady eyes just stared back at the Demon for a few moments, "You don't know either, huh? Well, what does it matter..? As long as you remember me, that's all I care about... L...Lu..." Eiro started, but mid-sentence, he started to suddenly stutter, as if forgetting something really important.

It was scary, especially after just thanking this stag for not forgetting about Eiro, and in return, the first thing he did was forget Lugo's name, "I'm sorry that I can't be as good a friend to you as you are to me."

With a loud bellowing sound, Lugo just started to rub his face against Eiro's again, and the Demon rubbed a tear out of the corner of his eye, "Thank you... I'll try not to forget any more about you, my friend." The demon said bluntly. He didn't know if this would really work out well, just sitting there and trying not to think of literally anything the whole time.

In the middle of htis snow-storm, in the middle of this field. Eiro just sat there, thinking of nothing as Lugo had wrapped his body around him.

But then, all of a sudden, Eiro heard Lugo bellow loudly, and the noise rang through the Demon's sensitive ears.

Eiro opened his eyes and was instantly able to figure out what exactly was going on. While the snowstorm was still ravaging the area around him, it had weakened quite a bit since before. Through the thick snow, Eiro could see some people approaching. They weren't James, Jess and Krog, or even the children, they were... A group of adventurers, at least judging from the guild cards they had in their bags.

They were surrounding Eiro completely, and all had their weapons pointed into his direction. It seemed like they had some sort of animal with them, or maybe it was even a magic beast.

"Don't move, Demon!" One of them, probably the leader, exclaimed, "Stop feeding on that innocent stag and face us!"

With a loud groan, Eiro pushed himself off the ground. He was surprised they even found him like this... Lugo and him had turned into a small hill of snow. In this storm, he should have been basically invisible.

"Still... how dumb of me to not make sure I concentrate on my surrounding... Or was it smart? Well, not that I care..." The Demon muttered quietly. He looked around himself without even really paying attention to anything in specific. As if he wasn't truly taking notice of anything, but was still seeing it.

That was because Eiro truly didn't want to think of anything, or else he might forget about random things that he simply had to know about.

"What is it muttering about?" One of the adventurers asked one of their companions, and Eiro just let his instincts do the work for him. His mind was shut down, he was basically in a state of half-meditation. He was conscious, but not really. So his instincts were accessing his consciousness and doing all the work that had to be done in the most raw way that the Demon could express himself in.

"I'm forgetting things... Forgetting... I don't want to forget any more." He replied bluntly, and of course, this didn't make sense to anyone here in the slightest. Eiro just kept standing there, before he felt something push against the center of his back as Lugo slowly stood up and pressed his snout against Eiro. Unsure what he wanted, Eiro just started to walk forward thoughtlessly.

One of the adventurers jumped to the side as he did and screamed something out, "Beldron!" He exclaimed, and the wolf-like beast immediately jumped at Eiro and bit deep into his shoulder, throwing Eiro to the ground. He didn't really prepare himself, after all, and Eiro hadn't been standing there properly, but was just there ready to fall over at any given moment.

"...Eh? It's pretty weak, isn't it?" One of the adventurers muttered seemingly disappointedly, as a red notification appeared floating above Eiro.

He didn't read what it said, but it didn't seem that serious. This bite didn't even hurt that much. Eiro ran his fingers through the notification, before one of the adventurers laughed, "Heh, look, it's being melodramatic. Like this is a play, or some shit. Well, who cares, killing a mad demon spotted in the middle of the city will boost us up quite a lot in the guild, right?"

"Fuck yeah. Especially in the middle of a blizzard like this." Another one replied, "Well, let's just finish it o-"

Before that adventurer could finish his sentence, he could hear a loud yelp that startled not only him but all the others as well. The yelp was quickly followed by the sound of something ripping and being crushed apart.

In this heavy weather, it was hard to see what was going on, but one of them just took a step closer. Just to see a red flood surrounding the Demon. Of course, that was to be expected, except... That most of this wasn't actually the Demon's blood, but rather that of the beast.

Slowly, Eiro turned the situation around. He hadn't eaten in a while, so he was feeling quite hungry. He figured this beast was the perfect snack to get rid of that hunger. Eiro bit right into the large wolf, quickly biting a fatal wound into its throat before he even cracked its neck with his teeth.

Eiro started ripping away at the dead beast and slowly chewing the meat. It wasn't really amazingly tasty, but it would do. Although Eiro thought that this seemed somehow... weird for him to do, he still did it anyway. He didn't want to think about why this was weird, or what he should rather do instead of just feeding on the beast. Eiro didn't want to forget, after all.

The Demon slowly pushed the beast off his body and simply burried his face in its flesh. But just a few moments after he did, something was cutting through the air. Reflexively, Eiro snapped his body around and pushed his wooden hand forward, before just pulling it up.

The snow that had gathered on the ground gathered together into a mass of ice that immediately pierced one of the adventurers from underneath. It didn't seem to have immediately killed him, but he would die pretty soon. At the very least he was in quite a lot of pain.

Immediately after Eiro did this, another one of the adventurers attacked, and Eiro tried the same thing. It cut the adventurer a little, but he was able to keep running toward Eiro, pushing his spear forward toward the Demon.

The moment he did, Eiro subtly moved his body to the side and grabbed the spear, rapidly pulling it away while he kicked the adventurer into the stomach. As he pulled the spear back, its tip was rammed right against the tip of the nose of the adventurer impaled by the ice-spike.

Eiro pulled it out again, slashing to the side, and twisted it around. He cut through the throat of the adventurer that he took the spear from initially, before holding it in its center and just throwing it at the third one of the adventurers that seemed to want to attack Eiro immediately. It bored through the center of that person's chest and cracked their ribs and spine on the way through the body, before the spear just impaled itself in the ground behind them.

And Eiro just casually returned to his meal as the other three adventurers ran for their lives.

After all, what were they supposed to do, now that Eiro had basically gone wild again?