Demon's Virtue

Eiro flipped through the books that were laying in front of him as quickly as possible. He was trying to register the information in his mind to use with the Knight of Pentacles, while not immediately forgetting it. It was a bit hard, but as long as Eiro was able to figure out which pages were the most important for now, he would be able to figure something out.

In the first place, there weren't all that many books about memory-manipulation here, so Eiro had to make sure he could squeeze every bit of information out of them that he could.

He copied a few pages down whenever he found parts that were indubitably necessary for him to figure this out, and then, after about two hours of repeated reading of the same books, pages, and paragraphs, Eiro finally stood up and placed the last page that he copied down onto the ground.

With his perception and his intelligence, Eiro was luckily able to see and truly perceive everything that he was looking at at once if he just so wanted. Like this, he would hopefully be able to use all this information at once and combine it together properly.

The demon stood there in the center of his room, while Lugo was laying on the ground in the corner of the room so that he wouldn't disturb anyone, while Solomon was trying to assist Eiro as much as possible.

Eiro stood there and looked at the pages. He looked at the letters, at the sketches, at everything. The demon repeated all the information in his head, until something started to... change.

From Eiro's perspective, at least. From Solomon and Lugo's, everything stayed the same. The Demon saw the sketches, the runes, and the words that were the most important suddenly start glowing. The moer he focused on them, the brighter they became until they were practically lifted off of the pages themselves.

These glowing lines were floating around Eiro's head as they were repeated in his mind over and over again. He connected certain things in a manner he had never done before, something that Eiro was sure of even with his currently lacking ability of remembering his life properly.

The Demon stared at the glowing letters, and he started to figure out what exactly was wrong. All these spells, and all these theories helped Eiro come to a single conclusion.

"Spells that manipulate memories permanently all require an effect to be applied over a longer period of time. The sooner the effect is interrupted, the more likely it is for the memory to be recovered. But... Forceful removal from the effect without the spell itself being interrupted may or may not have catastrophic consequences for the affected person. Complete amnesia, brain damage, or simple failure of the spell is all in the range of possibility of spells dealing with memories." The Demon explained. It was as if he was reciting something written down in a book, although none of the texts that Eiro read said anything about this specifically. But Eiro knew that this was true after piecing everything together in his mind.

Of course, Solomon noted exactly what Eiro said down without a moment's hesitation, "So... that means we can't just leave this storm after all. Rather, we should make sure that nobody does..."

"It's fine... We only need to worry about those that I've actively spoken to before. Those that have only briefly seen me or heard of me will have already permanently forgotten. I'm going to tell you anyone that I think might be affected by leaving the storm at this time." The Demon said. It was risky, but it needed to be done. Otherwise, random, unaffected, and innocent people may simply end up with immense consequences simply for knowing Eiro.

Immediately, the Demon went through his memories of this town and explained the name, estimated location, and appearance of everyone that Eiro thought might possibly be affected. People from the Adventurer's Guild. Merchants that Eiro interacted with on a regular basis. Different guards or soldiers that started recognizing Eiro when he was making his way in and out of this town, trying to make small-talk or just waving at him. In the end, Eiro mentioned everyone but those that Solomon could figure out himself, like the children, Eiro's party, his contracted spirits, the monsters that he had 'tamed', and of course Charles, Solomon's son.

And just when Eiro finished describing one person in particular, he had already forgotten about them. This town that had slowly started to become a new home to Eiro simply became cold and foreign in his mind. The only place of this town that he could recognize as his home was the manor, and that was not something that Eiro really wanted to think about right now. He wanted to keep those memories as long as he possibly could.

Once Solomon wrote down all the information about the people that might be strongly affected by this spell, he stepped out of this room and gave his guards the task to search for all these people and put them under house-arrest for their own safety, until further notice.

And then, he returned back to Eiro, to then have him investigate the other two possible solutions for this spell. At the very least they already established that it would be impossible for a spell like that to affect the whole world, practically ensuring that it had been fused with the snowstorm. Solomon was still waiting for that magic-letter's answer, however, just to be sure.

"What if you were to try and simply stop the storm? As if dispelling it instead of the spell itself?" Solomon asked. Eiro did mentioned that he was blessed by the Lady of Winter, so he had to have incredibly potent Ice Magic that he might be able to control such weather with. Or at the very least, he could attempt it, maybe weaken the storm or shortening it so that the spell can't be put under full effect.

As Eiro was thinking about the question he was just asked, he started to flip through the pages of a certain one of the books again. Eiro had places the pages that he copied down on the ground in a way that they would hint at in which one of the books he might be able to find which sort of information, and luckily, Eiro was able to figure it out with the help of the Knight of Pentacles.

He flipped the book open and soon found a bit of the information that he needed before copying it down onto a piece of paper that he added to the others.

Eiro did this a few more times, until he was finished, and the whole thing repeated itself like before. He accessed all of this important information as quickly as he could and tried to come to a conclusion using it.

"The spell and the storm seem fused together. That means that it will most likely be close to impossible to split either from the other... I may need to dispell both at the same time. Halt the storm, and halt the spell together. If I just stop the storm, it might be similar to bringing someone out of the range of the spell and could cause immense damages. And due to the nature of the storm, it is impossible to stop the spell itself without stopping the storm. So I need to dispell both at the same time, only then will it really work out." Eiro explained to Solomon, so that the King could note it down again so that they would remember.

"But how would you possibly do that? It would be like casting two spells of immense power at once, is that not so?" Solomon asked, and Eiro slowly nodded his head as he walked over toward a nearby table. He wrote something on a piece of paper, rolled it up, and pushed it inbetween the cracks of his prosthetic in a specific spot before rubbing his eyes for a moment, "Yeah... Yeah it does, I think. That in itself is not the issue, actually." Eiro said as he turned over toward the pieces of paper again to see what conclusion he came to, now that he forgot all this information just now again.

"I see... A spell like this requires immense concentration from the caster. It is not something that can simply be cast and then have an effect like this that continues on. But nonetheless, the caster certainly died. I have seen the notification, and received the levels from killing him. So, there can only be one way that this is still happening. What that enemy did was not directly casting the spell, but he was creating something like a conductor... something that would keep this spell up for him. Similar in concept to a phylactery." Eiro said, drawing this specific comparison because he saw the note mentioning the phylactery hidden in the manor.

"I assume that it has taken a physical form of sorts... You showed me a sketch of the way that this storm works right now. It is practically cricling this town and its surroundings, not moving from its spot, correct?" Eiro inquired, and Solomon nodded his head, "Yes, that's right." He replied. For a moment he thought that Eiro remembered something, but then he realized that it was just written on another note scattered on the floor.

"Then it is simple." The Demon said, "That conductor must be hidden somewhere within this town. It may take any form whatsoever, though, although there will be a large amount of mana directly connected to it. I may be able to use that large amount of mana to create a spell that takes down this storm. At the same time, because the conductor is lacking the necessary amount of mana, the spell will fail to continue and will stop being put out into the storm. I..." Eiro said, before sighing out deeply at the fact that he was about to give up this portion of his memories of Nelli and Gondos, "I can fuse with spirits, and have done so many times before. When I do, I gain the ability to sense magic in the same way that they do. I would be able to find that conductor in that way."

After that explanation, Solomon raised his brows with a smile, "That is perfect! Then let us hurry to the manor to find Nelli and Gondos, and then-"

"No." Eiro interrupted Solomon, "I'm not going back to the manor. Not when I'm like this. My mind is racing, and I don't know how to make it stop in this state I am in. If I were to head to the manor, my memories about it will be pulled to the forefront of my mind, and I will forget it. I will forget the manor, I will forget my friends and my family. And I don't want that. I forgot you and... and the stag already.... I don't want to forget the rest of my loved ones."