Demon's Virtue

Eiro, Gobo, Bavet in the bottle, and Lugo made their way back to town. In particular, Gobo was being a little bit annoying. It seemed like his evolution would finish in three days, just like with Bavet's, but he was being completely lethargic right now, which made it rather hard to get him back to town. Over and over again, he was nearly falling off of Lugo's back, so in the end, Eiro had to make him sit in front of him instead of behind him so that he could make sure he wouldn't fall off and crack his skull open on a random rock.

Just like James suggested they should do, Eiro rode the stag directly toward the place that Jess, Krog, and James were renting inside of this town, the second floor of a small building on the outskirts of the urban districts.

Eiro knocked on the door and just waited for someone to come open the door for him. Usually he would just climb up the wall and get in through the window, but he didn't want to leave Gobo unatteneded right now. Who knew what he would do? He was acting like he was drunk or something.

"Yes?" Eiro soon heard Jess' voice as she cheerfully opened the door up, and then looked at Eiro with her brows raised, "Ah, there you a-"

"Let me take a look." The demon said immediately, and Jess was already grinning broadly, so she quickly opened her status so that Eiro could read through it a bit.

"Ah, so you also get some bonus stats if you switch your class?" Eiro asked as he looked at all the numbers, "But either way, Apprentice Wind Mage is a good choice for now. Let's practice a bit once we're at the manor." The Demon suggested as he stepped inside and swiftly removed the snow from his feet using his ice magic, doing the same thing for Gobo, while Lugo simply had to wait outside for now. Eiro would notice if anything would happen to him, and he trusted Lugo not to mess around, so he didn't mind leaving him alone out there for now.

"Mhm! I can actually already notice a little bit of a difference already with my wind magic in particular, although it's not really a big difference." Jess explained excitedly while she walked up the stairs, quickly followed by Eiro and Gobo, "Well, that's good, that shows that you have good senses for your magic if you can notice small things like that." Eiro pointed out while Jess opened up the door to the apartment that she shared with Krog and James. Most of their belongings had already been packed up, not that there was particularly much to worry about. The largest space was definitely taken up by different weapons, staffs, and pieces of armor that everyone had for different particular purposes.

Eiro could see a couple of things like 'Trophies' around here as well, but it was just a minor thing like a specially-encased horn or claw or something like that, quite different to Eiro's collection of 'Trophies'. After all, he was a Collector Imp until just a little while ago, so having a habit like that was just obvious, wasn't it?

Either way, for now, Eiro quickly helped them out in properly getting everything ready while explaining the situation with Gobo and Bavet's evolutions, before he carried a few of the bags filled with everyone's belongings down the stairs and brought them to Lugo already. These bags were filled with things that they wouldn't immediately need for now, and they would just move the rest tomorrow or the day after tomorrow.

Either way, the three of them would gradually move into the manor from now on. There were more than enough rooms for something like that, after all. Eiro made his way back to the manor immediately after departing from the others' place, but he was rather surprised to see an unexpected visitor awaiting him.

Eiro quickly cleaned Lugo outside and then had him carry everything inside so that Eiro could just put the things down somewhere around here temporarily, before he quickly made his way to the room where his guest was already awaiting him.

The Demon pushed the door open, and within moments, the guests stood up for him, "Ah, Eiro! Great to see that you came back so early!" Solomon exclaimed with a bright smile on his face, but Eiro just nodded his head as if it was obvious, "Yeah, I'm usually back before the children head to bed. But what brings you here, you two?"

Eiro slowly turned his head toward Charles and nodded at him as a quick greeting as well. All of the children were in here as right now as well, all seven of them, including Felix of course. Just out of habit, Eiro made sure that they were all doing alright before he looked back at the King in front of him, who swiftly spoke up, "There are a few different things I wish to speak about, actually. One of those matters would be the Academy, which the children will attend quite soon." Solomon explained, so Eiro quickly nodded his head and stretched out a bit.

"Sounds good. Oh, and thank you for making your guards stay outside of the property, you don't even have your 'shadow unit' following you. So I just have to ask one thing... Can I trust your brat? It's uncomfortable to walk around so... well, restrained all day."

Solomon thought about what Eiro was trying to say, and then turned his head toward Charles, who seemed to be a little bit confused, "Ever since you helped Charles out like you did back in Argberg, I have noticed that he changed from the grounds-up. I guarantee that you can trust him. If necessary, you may ask Samantha and help her make him simply forget."

"Huh..." Eiro muttered, "That's true, I didn't even think about that yet. That would definitely work. Well, here goes nothing." With that, the Demon pulled the mask off his face and took off his cloak. Underneath the cloak, he was now wearing a special shirt that Rudy had sewn for him. It had an open back right around where the roots of Eiro's wings were, and as long as Eiro infused them with shadow magic beforehand, he was able to stuff his wings through that hole rather easily as well.

So now he didn't have to walk around shirtless if he wanted to stretch his wings out a bit. Something that Eiro immediately did. Having his wings infused with shadow magic and then constantly having something press against them wasn't particularly pleasant in the long run. So after shaking his wings around a bit, Eiro sat down on one of the chairs, while Charles was just staring at Eiro in confusion.

"Y-You... h-he... What is... Did you know about this?!" Charles yelled out as he started breathing heavily and looking over toward Rudy, Arc, Clementine, Sammy and Felix, all of which, beside Felix who didn't manage to read Charles' lips, looked at each other and nodded their heads.

"Yeah, of course we know, it's kind of hard to hide in the long run." Arc pointed out bluntly, "He's not a scary monster, don't worry. He's mostly just embarrassing, like any father." The young man pointed out, although Sammy slightly turned her eyes toward him.

"Ooh~? I happen to remember a certain one of us pissing their pants the first time they saw Eiro..." She pointed out, and Arc immediately turned his head, "Oi, I wanted to run away from people that wanted to sell us to become weapons of war, and then suddenly came across a literal fucking Demon with a bloodied dagger towering over a newborn. What'd you expect from me?"

Slowly, both Solomon and Charles turned their heads toward Eiro, who just sighed and figured he had to explain the situation a bit, "A person I owe to a lot died while holding that dagger, and that newborn was Avalin, who I saved from that town. I ran into Arc, helped them out, they helped me out in turn, and then we met Jura and he took us in. But that's not why you're here, you're here because you wanted to talk to us about school." Eiro pointed out, and Solomon slowly nodded his head. He would definitely ask about this later, but Eiro was right, they came for something else.

"Right, sorry. Well, for one, we brought the uniforms with us. They all have the same design, but the colors are different depending on the course everyone wants to attend. Other materials for the classes will be handed out on the first day or during the semester. Otherwise, I just wanted to let you know that everything worked out and we managed to make special arrangements so that the children's unique skills won't be revealed right away. Of course they still need to be careful depending on the class, but the responsible teachers have been properly informed."

"Oh, that's good to know, thank you. I was a bit worried about that, truthfully. You yourself heard what those nobles said the other day after seeing what the children did, and they didn't even properly see it. If they do figure it out, it's going to be much more bothersome, even if you tell them to stop." Eiro added, "We'll hopefully be able to handle everything well, tho-"

"Wait, wait, wait, are we actually just skipping over all this? We're not speaking about this anymore? The fact that Eiro is a literal DEMON?!" Charles interrupted, "Why are all of you acting like this is completely normal?"

With a slight sigh, Eiro moved his hand to the side and created a gust of wind that pushed Gobo's hood off of his head, revealing his ugly Hobgoblin face that was somewhat hidden so far because he was just staring down at the ground. And otherwise, Eiro slowly pulled out the glass bottle with Bavet in it, and quickly poured his slime core into the container holding his actual slime. As if he already knew what he was supposed to do, Bavet transformed and turned into a human form that was just squatting on the ground while his body was practically melting because of how... exhausted and out of control he was.

"Urgh... I feel like throwing up... And I don't even have a stomach..." Bavet groaned loudly, and Gobo just dropped onto the ground face-first with a loud thump and grumble, "Don't worry, Gobo will throw up for you..."

Immediately, Eiro coughed a bit, and Gobo slightly turned his head, "Hm? Oh... 'I' will throw up for you... Sorry, Master..."

With a slight sigh, Eiro turned away from those two and then looked at Charles, "I think compared to those two, even I look pretty normal, don't I?"