Demon's Virtue

Eiro tried to properly sense every tiny place that he could reach inside of this prison. He peeked into the cells, private rooms, offices, anywhere where there was even the slightest hint of ticking. Of course, it was possible that the clock was just somehow turned off and that it wasn't actually ticking right now, but it was Eiro's best clue for now.

And since there were clocks all around the prison in the first place, he would have to make his way to all the corners of this place anyway. Eiro looked around the place, and then at some point, managed to figure out that the memento was nowhere in the areas that Eiro could currently actually reach.

It wasn't anywhere in the cells, it wasn't with any of the other guards, and it wasn't with anyone else that might be able to get into the Warden's office just like that.

At first Eiro considered that the one that stole it must have some sort of key to get into the warden's office, meaning that he could have narrowed it down a fair bit, but considering that Eiro got inside with just as little effort and without an actual key as well, he figured that it was possibly that whoever stole it managed to pick the lock.

Eiro figured that it was an inmate anyway, so that would work out pretty well with that idea too. If the guards here had a contract about not being allowed to speak about anything going on inside of this prison, then there surely would be some kind of clause about stealing things as well. And magic contracts were extremely vicious a lot of the time, so very few people would actually risk going against them if they valued themselves.

And if the perpetrator was an inmate with enough skills in lockpicking to not leave behind any sort of trace on the lock, then it would make sense that they were capable of just leaving their cell as well. But since nobody seemed to have broken out, they must still be inside if Eiro's guess was really correct.

So, the Demon figured that he had to do one thing. Go to the area where even he wasn't able to look completely. Deep, deep underground into the areas where the high-security inmates were kept.

Eiro slowly made his way toward the entrance into that area, the one large metal gate at the very bottom part of the main area. The only thing that led down was a staircase that was heavily reinforced by metal, and that had three separate gates installed inside of it that you would need a key to get through.

But hopefully, Eiro would be able to get through easily enough with Bavet's help and his perceptive abilities. If he had to, he would just break the locks and make his way deeper into the prison, hopefully find wherever the memento was, and then bring it back to the Warden's office without any issues.

And honestly, considering how scared even those supervisors were of the fact that the memento was gone, Eiro was positive that they would keep anything any everything that happened in connection with this even a secret from the Warden. Or at least, they would try to keep quiet about it as much as they could.

Either way, for now, Eiro just made his way to the first of those gates and stood around casually in a spot where he could be with the position that Christler, the guy that Eiro was impersonating, had. From here, he was able to see the entrance properly. It seemed like it had a rather complex mechanism inside of it that would be a bother to work around.

All the lower floors were protected by thick sheets of metal that Eiro wouldn't be able to get through with earth magic either. It was a bit annoying, but that was how it was.

Eiro wasn't actually all too sure if he would be able to bust through that door all too easily either. It was a bit bothersome, actually. What he would need in order to break this door was a large amount of pressure building up from inside in very specific places. All-around pressure actually wouldn't do with this, so he couldn't just try and heat it up or fill it with a lot of water, since he actually couldn't compress that all too well.

What he would need was something that would grow from inside, something with a lot of strength an power behind it. Of course, that was only if he didn't find some other way to get in... Like an anxious supervisor getting the same idea as Eiro and trying to make his way to the lower areas to check on the inmates there.

Immediately, Eiro cloaked his body in a layer of the ace of cups' liquid and quickly made his way to a position where he wouldn't have any issues just sprinting in through the door while it was briefly opened.

Eiro managed to get a short glimpse inside just before, and it was incredibly dark inside of there, so once he got in, he would be able to use shadow magic to properly hide himself without any sort of issues.

The Demon counted down to the point at which he had to sprint forward while he already chose to infuse his body with shadow magic from a shadow magic stone on top of using the ace of cups' effect, to make sure he couldn't be noticed by anyone.

"Three... two... one... now!" Eiro whispered to himself and ran forward the moment that the door opened up, entering through the metal door the moment it had been opened. It seemed like because of his rash movements, the supervisor, with a bit of a higher status was able to notice him to an extent. Although he only heard a small sound that he quickly dismissed after not seeing anything afterward. He had something more important to take care of right now, after all, and if nobody else noticed it might have just been nothing. That was probably his thought-process.

With a light smirk on his face, Eiro returned the rest of the ace of cups' potion into the actual cup and returned the card to his treasury together with the shadow magic stone he just used, before infusing himself with the shadows inside of this stairway that formed the moment after the thick metal door was closed.

Eiro slowly followed the supervisor down the stairs as he entered through the other doors as well, and swiftly made his way to the next place where he had to start looking. Immediately, Eiro was able to figure out hte position of some new clocks ticking in the distance everywhere here.

Since Eiro couldn't actually use earth magic properly here due to the fact that everything was made out of metal, he was having a hard time using the vibrations of the ground to figure out the layout. He was still able to somewhat do so because of the echoes from the inmates' and guards' voices, but beside that, he would need to be capable of using Metal Magic if he wanted to sense things through the vibrations of this ground.

Although it wasn't like he couldn't use it at all, since he did feel a little bit of the vibrations and was able to analyze them to an extent, since Earth was the base element for the advanced Metal element. But it didn't really work out all too well when it came to anything further away than ten meters.

And so, Eiro slowly rushed through the place while completely infused with the shadow element so that he could somewhat push himself into the shadows of the dark hallways and hide from anyone that was trying to pass. Luckily, he was able to find the clocks in this area just through sound.

But for the most part, they were just simple, normal clocks with nothing to them at all. Eiro was slowly getting a bit irritated at how long this was taking him.

And that was just when Eiro reached a weird sort of special cell. It seemed very... differnet. For one, the cell was one huge room, and the actual 'cell' was suspended in mid-air through a few different chains as well as a special sort of magic, it seemed. The people stationed here were some of the strongest that Eiro had seen inside of this whole prison. They were constantly standing at the bottom of this room, at the sides of this space that the actual cell was suspended in.

Then, a weird part was that the cell was just a single block of metal with not a single opening. At first, Eiro wasn't even sure if this was an actual cell or just some sort of weird exhibit at the weirdest place for such an exhibit to be, or if this place was under construction, but he heard people speculating about what kind of weird person was kept inside of there.

It seemed like beside the metal, there were numerous layers of different materials to make sure that whoever or whatever was in there couldn't get out, or so Eiro figured from the numerous conversations focused just around this place.

Apparently, this was the most important cell in this whole prison, and if the one inside of it got out of there, then they would most likely cause more than just a little havoc. Although it did confuse Eiro why such a person was inside of a prison like this instead of a specialized high-security prison. It made it seem like this was the reason why Eiro would end up needing the central key, although he kind of doubted that it would help him get inside of that cell. If he even wanted to do that...

Either way, for now, Eiro had to keep looking for the memento. And somehow, he had already found the next clock, although he doubted that it would really be the thing he was looking for.

But then, he noticed a slightly off... scent. It was like something was rotting, so the Demon made his way over there. It felt like this would be different to the other clocks he found until now.

And then, the Demon passed the corner and at the end of the current hallway saw something that he didn't expect. It was the source of the rotten scent, and it quietly stood there holding the 'memento' in its hand.

The source of the scent was an undead, a Zombie that was created using one of the guards.

And the memento that it was holding was a cylindrical glass container with a clockwork mechanism magically suspended inside of it. At first glance, to most it would probably seem like just a magical clock or something. But any guard working here, as well as Eiro right now, knew what it really was.

It was a child's heart that keeping a clockwork mechanism running that was there, magically suspended inside of the glass cylinder.