Demon's Virtue

Eiro landed on the roof of his manor, looking up into the sky. He slowly closed his eyes as he started thinking about what to do next, "Now... that wyvern had a mark from the devil on her... but the devil would never let a special specimen that he personally gave something like that to escape so easily... And considering that... that the wyvern had marks from other wyverns on her, there might be a larger group of wyverns... a large flock of them, maybe..." Eiro whispered quietly, and slowly sat back up. He stared into the distance as he continued to think.

"Wyverns lay eggs once every five years. They start forming a month in advance of the laying. Considering how protective she was of the eggs, they were probably the reason why she left in the first place. Let's say... one or two weeks in she noticed that she was soon going to lay, and went off somewhere where she could be safe from others. So, the rest of the flock would be maybe three weeks away... But... why is it so far up north..?" The Demon muttered quietly, trying to figure out what exactly was going on.

Wyverns were cold-blooded, meaning that they wouldn't usually be found near here. Or rather, this was the farthest north that you may end up finding them. And when wyverns split off from their flock to lay on their own, they would usually travel further south where it was warmer and safer for the wyvern and the soon-to-be born hatchlings.

"So either, part of the Devil's experiment was to see how incredibly hungry wyverns would survive up north, or something is completely wrong with this wyvern's inner compass. I doubt it would really be the latter, though." The Demon whispered to himself, as he thought about the physical structure of the wyvern for a bit longer. He went into his mental library, and imagined the wyvern to be standing in front of his eyes.

Layer by layer, he removed parts of the wyvern to see if there was anything else special about it. Beside the fact that its stomach acids seemed strong enough to be able to tear just about anything apart, and that its intestines were filled with traces of even some usually non-edible things, like coins or cloth. And amongst them, was something else. There was some sort of rock, clearly stuck somewhere in its intestine, causing some sort of blockage, which probably didn't help the wyvern's health.

"Hm, the scent of that... it's... very, very rich in iron and copper, but it seems unprocessed..." Eiro muttered, as he slowly blinked the wyvern's body away. Instead, he created a physical representation of the continent up to a wyvern's three-week travel distance, which was clearly incredibly far. Putting into account the weather up north, as well as the fact that she had half a dozen huge eggs growing inside of her body, he was able to narrow things down a bit further.

"And then... the areas that are particularly iron- and copper-rich along there... If I left now, I should be able to get near there in a day, as long as I go really fast." Eiro told himself, "A flock of wyverns that spend their whole lives killing and eating anything they come across... might be worth two or three levels."

"Wait, you're leaving again? Seriously? But you only just came back! And what about... you know?" Rudy pointed out, slowly glancing at Arc and Sammy. Everyone had become incredibly nervous because of Arc's and Sammy's parents suddenly coming over. And Eiro understood that of course.

"Which is why you'll be staying at the royal castle for a few days. I already discussed some options with Solomon. Listen, if everything works out, I'm going to be staying here for the next few months. This is the only chance I have before class starts again in a few days. Nothing is going to happen, you can trust me." Eiro explained simply, but it seemed like the others weren't particularly convinced.

"There are only few monsters around here that are going to be able to help me level up at all. If I want to level up even one more time, I might have to eradicate the whole forest. And once I level up just three more times, I'm going to evolve again, and after said evolution, there is very little on my agenda anytime soon. Okay?"

"...When will you be back?" Arc asked, and Eiro slowly turned his head toward him, "In two, at most three days. Possibly shorter. Throughout my last few level-ups, my agility rose a lot." Eiro explained. Of course, the fact that he could assign his stat point freely was something that only very few people knew about. Even his children didn't know yet. It was one of the few secrets that he was keeping from them. That, as well as the true origin of his being. As in, who he was before his soul had been used to create the current him.

"Alright. Then be sure to come back before Leon starts sleepwalking again. That's my condition." Arc said bluntly, and Eiro immediately nodded his head, "Of course, don't worry. With all of you at the castle, I'm sure that Leon and Avalin will be far too distracted for them to even notice I'm gone. I'll be back before you know it." Eiro explained to them all. The Demon slowly walked over toward the door and smiled.

"They're both sleeping now. In the morning, Solomon will be here to pick you up personally. And then, you guys only have to sleep once, and I should be back before you go to bed a second time. That sound good?" Eiro asked, and everyone slowly nodded their heads, as the Demon stepped out, "I love you all. And now, don't head to bed too late."

Eiro walked through the hallway, and looked at his party members as he went on his way as well, "I'll be back soon. This is just one more hunt before... everything changes." He explained, and James looked back at him, "Just take care of yourself, man. And make sure to come back soon."

"Of course. I promised." Eiro smiled, as he pushed open the door. Even Bavet was sitting by the entrance, somewhat nervous. It was one of the few times where Eiro was heading off somewhere lately and didn't need this slime's help disguising himself. Of course, it was somewhat nerve-wracking.

Eiro stood in front of the manor and spread out his wings. He fused himself with the air, and the moment he flapped his wings just once, he shot into the sky, leaving behind nothing but a huge cloud of dust. Once in the air, Eiro opened up his status. He still had 120 stat points to assign. And immediately, Eiro assigned 40 of those stat points to his Agility, as a message appeared in front of his eyes.

[Your agility has surpassed the 300 point threshold! The [Quick Feet] Ability has been upgraded to [Quick Movement]]

Eiro could immediately feel himself become a lot quicker than he was before, removing probably a couple of hours from his travel-time at the very least. Eiro didn't want to invest the other 80 he had leftover into agility as well. For now, he wanted to see if he could just speed himself up further using more and more magic.

He was using at an incredible speed right now anyway, but the issue was that he might have to spend quite some time slowing down to actually search his destinations for the wyverns. That would cost him quite a bit of time. But at least for now, Eiro began constructing a spell in front of him. At this speed, this was something a bit more complex and mana-intense, but he definitely had said mana to spare.

The moment the spell activated, Eiro shot forward a few hundred meters in an instant, as if he teleported. It was like the air itself shattered into pieces just because Eiro was traveling through it. Even Nelli, Gondos and Sarius weren't able to keep up. They just stayed at the manor for now, choosing to be summoned to him when he actually found his destination to make things a lot easier for everyone.

For about nine hours, Eiro kept travelling as the world around him became colder and colder, to the point where the bits of his body that were still solid were nearly freezing, due to the speed at which he was traveling.

But soon, seven hours later, Eiro chose to slow down to take a look around in more detail. There were a lot of mountains around here as well, and since wyverns liked to be around high places, it seemed like this was a good enough place as any to search around. For the next five hours, Eiro did nothing but do that. He searched and searched and searched, although he didn't even know if he was in the right place.

Eiro had basically just guessed that this was where he would find the wyverns, from the traces of food that were left within the wyvern's body. But what if those were simply goods transported by merchants that the wyvern chose to attack in its hunger? Then all of Eiro's guesses would basically be useless.

Eiro let out a deep, annoyed sigh. He kept flying around for a while longer, hoping to be able to find something, but if he didn't get there by sundown, then he would just turn around to leave again. He would need to find a way to apologize to the children for returning the same level he was at when he left, but they would probably understand when he explained the situation to them... right?

Just as Eiro was thinking about this, and the sun stood high in the sky above him, Eiro heard a familiar screech.