Demon's Virtue

Eiro and Arc entered the demon's study, where the others were still waiting, as Bavet seemed to be slowly recovering again. He was breathing heavily as if on instinct, since he didn't actually need to breathe at all.

"Leon is asleep again, everything should be fine now. It seems like he's been doing this since we left." Eiro explained, before turning around to his son, "And I brought Arc with me."

"I'm glad that the little brat is fine, but I'm not! Do you even know how uncomfortable that was?!" Bavet practically screamed out, and Eiro proceeded to just glare back at him for a moment, "Don't call my son a brat, will you?" He said with a wry smile, before stepping up to the slime. He pressed his hand onto his head, and proceeded to make his mana course through Bavet's body. A moment later, all the issues within his body had been corrected, since Eiro just manipulated the liquids with his mana.

"Now stop complaining. It couldn't have been that bad when I didn't even feel it without it being pointed out to me." Eiro said bluntly, and Bavet immediately turned around toward him, "The fuck? You're trying to tell me you didn't feel that? Seriously?"

"That's what I just said, isn't it?" Eiro sighed as he walked up to the cabinet to get another glass for Arc, before pouring him some liquor. The Demon once more quickly sat down on his armchair, while Arc joined the others on the couches.

"That is kind of weird though." Arc pointed out as well, "I mean, it usually wakes up all the monsters in the house, and sometimes makes them go pretty crazy... some even broke parts of their furniture, but Armodeus mostly repaired everything already. But that you didn't feel it is kinda... weird."

"...Is it really? Well, there's nothing wrong with my senses, I just didn't feel affected by it at all." Eiro explained as he crossed his arms in thought, but before he was able to make a suggestion about what was going on, Jess said something that made quite a lot of sense.

"Well, if this all started since we left, then it might just be because he missed you while he was going through all of this, right? Maybe subconsciously, he just simply... excluded you."

Eiro raised his brows curiously at that idea, "That would make sense, but at the same time... he didn't even know I was here. And his skill is based on an area of effect, it doesn't affect specific targets."

"Well... His skill was pretty close to reaching advanced grade... So maybe it finally jumped over?" Arc suggested, and Eiro looked back with a worried expression, "...It's true that I didn't check his status page for a while, but has it really risen that much?"

"He told me that the level has been rising a lot, yeah... It started leveling up more since he's been feeling so under the weather again, because his body's been changing. I think maybe it might be affecting his skills as well or something, I don't know." Arc said bluntly, "And I mean, since he's practically always holding them back, he's kinda interacting with the skills, which would probably end up giving him some more skill experience, right?"

"...Right, you do have a point. I'll have to speak to him about it in the morning. But if he's really become capable of selecting who he wants to affect in such a way, that would be a really powerful ability." Eiro said with a somewhat worried expression. This sort of skill being in the hands of a child was something really troublesome in the first place. And not just because it was dangerous to Leon and those around him, but also because it was a lot of stress for a child. And if the wrong people were to find out about this, that would be even worse. Well, at the very least Eiro had all the power and means to hold anyone that he needed to back from achieving whatever ploy they had that involved his children.

Eiro leaned back in his armchair and took another sip of his liquor, before letting out a deep sigh. This situation was really quite troublesome. He just really hoped that everything would be fine with the kids after this, and that this was the last incident that could potentially interrupt their peace.

Eiro shoveled some dirt out of the way with his hands while looking over to the side, "See? Just like that. A hole like this is enough for seeds like that." The Demon explained, and Leon slowly did just what Eiro did as well, just that he had to use both his hands to just get the same amount of dirt away as Eiro did witt just one hand.

The demon then placed a few small seeds into that hole together, before covering it dirt again. He then handed Leon some seeds as well, "Just put them all in there. Like that, it's more likely that something will actually sprout from it." Eiro explained, before Nelli appeared beside him, "You won't make it grow using magic?"

"No, no, that wouldn't be fun." Eiro said, looking around at this small part of his garden that he had prepared this morning, "I want this plot to be something of a small project with the kids. If I just make everything grow using magic, that would kind of defeat the whole point." Eiro explained, as he watched Leon bury the flower seeds in the soil.

The young boy then looked at his completely dirty hands and turned toward his father, "What now?" He asked, and Eiro smiled at him as he rubbed his hands over Leon's to simply pull off the dirt with magic, "Now we're going to have to wait a while. It's going to take a few months until we can see these flowers bloom, though." Eiro explained, "But still, that's going to be worth it. Watching something grow and nurting it like that is a great, calming feeling. We now have to water it to help it sprout, and remove and bad plants from around it that might hinder its growth."

"...alright. But it kind of makes me tired..." Leon pointed out, already rubbing his eyes. With a slightly concerned expression, the Demon ran his hand through Leon's rather thick hair, "Don't worry, you can take a nap later. For now, how about you play with your sister a bit? She's been picking out some toys to play with all morning." Eiro suggested, before Leon slowly nodded his head.

"Okay..." He yawned, as Eiro quickly picked him up, bringing him over to the terrace where the others were just sitting around a little bit. Today was a surprisingly warm spring day, so they figured it was as good a day as any. Eiro set Leon down next to Avalin, rubbed over her head, and quickly sat down next to his other children.

"You guys really need to pick out which flower you want to plant soon, or else Leon's and mine will be ahead of yours quite a bit." The Demon pointed out, and Arc just laughed loudly in response, "Hah, right, I'll be picking the most awesome flower that's going to grow faster than all the others, all the whilst looking the coolest!"

"...right... well, the rest of us already kind of picked out some, but we weren't sure if they're good choices." Rudy pointed out, and Eiro smiled lightly, "Don't worry, all the ones on the marked pages can be grown around this time of the year. Just pick whichever one you want from that." Eiro said, before Sammy immediately shrugged.

"If that's the case, then I'd like to grow this one. The 'Glass Rose'? It sounds pretty cool..." She pointed out. Eiro quickly smiled and nodded his head, "It is 'pretty cool', actually. They're going to start out a bit white when they sprout, but after that there's going to be a week where the petals are completely translucent." Eiro explained, "I was planning on making each of you guys an 'Everblooming' version of whatever flower you guys choose to grow, so that's certainly going to be quite pretty." The Demon said, but before his children could tell him which flower they wanted to plant, Eiro heard something in the distance.

Horses, carriages, people talking to each other... visitors were approaching.

"Bavet." The Demon said as he stood up, and the slime stood up from the perch he was laying on as a cat, jumping down at Eiro, who quickly caught him as the slime covered his body completely. Eiro quickly turned into his human form. He was only wearing a simple shirt, some pants, and black boots earlier, so Bavet quickly transformed his wings into a jacket that at least looked somewhat like something a noble could wear out in public. The Demon swiftly made his way over toward the entrance of the manor while making sure that all the monster servants were transformed into their 'person' forms as well.

The guards in the front quickly opened the gate for the visitors, and the carriages soon came to a halt right in front of Eiro. A man, with short blonde hair and crystal blue eyes, quickly stepped out of the carriage, looking at Eiro immediately.

"You, call the lord of the house immediately." He said to Eiro, clearly thinking that he was just a servant or something like that.

"That will be unnecessary." Eiro replied, "That lord would be me, Eiro Jura Daemonherz."

"Ah, perfect, then." The man said, as a woman stepped out of the same carriage he was in, the same blonde hair as this man. Out of one of the other carriages stepped two other people that also seemed to be nobles. He had hazel brown hair, and she had fiery red hair. Parts of their scents were also incredibly familiar to Eiro, as he could already guess what was about to happen.

The man that spoke to Eiro quickly approached him, and proceeded to simply... slap him. Of course, the man's hand hurt much more than Eiro's cheek did, but the man didn't let his pain show through his anger, "My name is Aaron Minas Gilhart, I am here to retrieve my son, Arc Gilhart."

"Ah..." Eiro was right. These people were respectively Arc's and Sammy's parents.