Demon's Virtue

In response to the quiet ringing that the bell at the top of the door caused when someone opened the door, Tom pushed his head out of the back room to see who was there and then just started to smile and walked to the front of the counter. "Eiro, good to see you!" The Middle-aged man said with a smile as he extended his hand over toward the Demon, who swiftly returned the handshake as well.

"Likewise. I want to introduce you to someone, this is Arc. He came with me today to sign up to the Guild." Eiro explained, and with a bright smile Tom held his hand in front of Arc to shake his hand as well before the young man swiftly shook it with his own.

"Nice to meet you, Arc." Tom said, and Arc just smiled back at him, "The pleasure is all mine." He replied, and Tom then swiftly turned around and stepped back behind the counter while dragging one of his legs like he always did.

"So, you want to join the Guild?" The Guild receptionist asked, and Arc swiftly nodded in response, "Yep, I do! That way I can start making my own money." The boy said smugly, and Eiro just quietly chuckled while Tom nodded his head and handed Arc a sheet of paper and a pen.

"Then please fill out this information. Considering Eiro"s proficiency, I"m sure you can read and write?" Tom added as he looked at the boy with a smile, and Arc just slightly nodded his head, albeit with a seemingly disappointed frown, "By hand..? Aren"t Guilds supposed to have something like Magic Tools that can scan your status on their own or something?" Arc asked, and with a light laugh Tom shook his head.

"Not here, I"m afraid. Sure, in larger towns with larger Guilds, they might have those, but such Magic Tools are rather expensive. We keep everything on paper, and once a year someone from the closest large Guild will come here to copy the information since we can"t afford the Magic Tool ourselves." Tom pointed out, "You will notice that we do not possess any Magic Tools in this town at all, actually. No Cla.s.s-Change crystal, no Monster-Repellants, nothing like that. For the cla.s.s-change, just like for the guild information update, once a year someone from the church comes here with a portable cla.s.s-change crystal to let anyone that can change their cla.s.s do so." Tom explained quite clearly, "They usually come in the summer, so it"s still a while until then."

"You mean I"m stuck without a cla.s.s for another half year..?" Arc asked with a wry smile, and Tom simply nodded his head again, "I"m afraid so."

With a deep sigh, Arc looked down at the piece of paper and grabbed the pen, swiftly filling out the information before lifting his head again, "And what do I put as my cla.s.s in here?"

"You can just leave it blank, we will update it once you actually get your first Cla.s.s." Tom said with a smile on his face, and then swiftly took the filled-out piece of paper and placed it down onto the area behind the counter that a customer usually couldn"t look at.

"Your Guild card will take a little while to finish. How about I give to Eiro at the end of the Solstice and he simply brings it home with him?" The receptionist suggested, and with a disappointed expression, Arc nodded his head.

"That"s fine, I guess." He replied, and Eiro swiftly looked at the boy standing next to him, "Arc." The Demon said, and Arc swiftly raised his brows and then looked at Tom again, "Oh, right... Thank you for your help." The boy said, and with a light laugh Tom shook his head with a laugh as if in disbelief over something.

"A Demon telling a child to be grateful, what a world we live in." The man laughed, and then started looking through some sheets of paper laying right next to him.

"Hmm, would you perchance be interested in taking your first request already, Arc?" Tom asked, and with a bright smile, the boy nodded his head, "I would love to! What requests do you have?" He asked, and Tom swiftly started looking through the different things he had next to him before finding one that seemed rather interesting.

"There is a request you could go shopping for Miss Jameson. Then there would also be a request where you might be able to help out in the Smithy, the Smith is rather busy these days and his son is pre-occupied as well..." Tom explained, and while Arc was rather disappointed at the extent of these requests, Eiro was rather interested at what Tom just said.

"He"s busy? The horses all got new horseshoes last month already, and the farming season is over... And why would Smith"s son be busy, besides helping his father out he"s only part of the-" Eiro started, and then all of a sudden realized what was going on. "What"s Rumia doing?" He asked, before Tom just scratched the back of his neck and sighed deeply.

"He"s being rather troublesome, actually. While he may not have any bad intentions, he"s trying to push his ideologies onto the town and is trying to turn the militia into an actual group of armed soldiers. But you know those guys, the militia is an excuse for all those guys to meet up and get drunk every night without their wives telling them they"re b.u.ms." Tom said with a deep sigh, and Eiro raised his brows in response, "Aren"t you part of the militia as well, technically?"

"Yes I am, that"s why I can tell you how it is. But since I"m running the Guild, Lord Argenson made an exception for me, and I can keep working here. Also, because of my legs..." The Guild receptionist explained, so Eiro lightly nodded his head in thought.

"I"ll try and speak to Lady Winter about it, maybe she can say something when Rumia inevitably tries to speak to her." Eiro suggested, so Tom slowly nodded his head, "That would be greatly appreciated. I can"t imagine what kind of changes he will be trying to put into effect throughout the next year..." The middle aged man muttered quietly, and Eiro slowly nodded, although he still stayed silent for a little bit and then looked at Arc as he was looking through the requests that Tom gave him to choose from.

"Tom, do you have any request for Arc that he can get done away from this town? Some simple gathering requests, maybe?" Eiro asked, and Tom slowly scratched his chin in thought, "Usually I"m not allowed to give a completely new member a request above their rank, but I will just make an exception this time." Tom said with a wink, and then swiftly grabbed another piece of paper that he then gave to Arc, which he seemed to be a bit more satisfied with.

And after Eiro made sure that it was something that Arc could actually handle, he nodded his head in areement and finally got out the money to actually pay for registering at the guild before Arc officially took his first request, "Alright! These grow near our house, right? That would be pretty easy to get done, right?" He asked excitedly, before Eiro just nodded his head, "Yes, exactly. But you"ll have to look for them yourself, or else that would be cheating." The Demon pointed out, so the boy immediately nodded his head before Eiro and Arc said goodbye to Tom and made their way out of the Guild, where they swiftly encountered a sight they didn"t really enjoy.

"Come on, you fat... beast! Move your a.s.s!" A Soldier exclaimed as he tried to push Lugo away from where he was sitting, and Eiro looked at his Familiar with a confused expression, "Lugo, did you sit down on something of his?" The Demon asked confusedly, and the Stag looked back at him in thought for a few moments and then shook his head.

"Did you do something else to make him angry?" Eiro asked next, but once more Lugo just shook his head, so the Imp swiftly turned toward the soldier himself, "Then what may be the problem right now?"

Slightly surprised, the Soldier looked at Eiro and then took a step backward when he remembered who he was, and then started to stutter, "I-Is this your S-Stag?" He asked, and Eiro just nodded his head, waiting for what the Soldier was trying to get at.

"Th-Then I must tell you that we-we"re confiscating it under the name of the Holy K-King..." The Soldier said, and Eiro looked at him with a sigh and shook his head, "No, you"re not." The Demon replied and then snapped his fingers to tell Lugo to stand up and then started to make his way over toward the first shop they needed to go to, swiftly followed by Arc and Lugo alike, while the Soldier took a moment  to understand that Eiro just completely disregarded his command.

"That is not for you to de-decide! We are preparing a feast for the Lady of Winter that is coming next week, and we need the best of the best of food for that occasion!" The Soldier exclaimed, "You are obligated to support us in that act!"

With a rather annoyed expression, hidden by his mask, Eiro turned around and stared at the soldier while rather upset at what he just said, but just before he could do or say anything, Arc took that over for him and approached the soldier with a bright smile.

"My man, I"m Arc, what about you?" The boy said with a grin, and the Soldier slowly frowned at him and replied, "While it is unimportant, my name is Gerald."

"You"re right, you"re completely unimportant, glad you can see that. Now listen here, Gerald, you"re trying to tell me that you"re trying to prepare a feast for a G.o.ddess of nature, by killing a being of nature?" Arc asked, slightly laughing as he did so, and Gerald just nodded his head.

"Of course!" He exclaimed, and Arc looked at him with a wry smile, "That"s not the answer I expected, honestly. Well buddy, listen here. You"re a f.u.c.king idiot. I personally haven"t met the Ladies yet, but from what I heard, they"re not huge fans of senseless destruction and murder, so what you"re trying to do here may not necessarily be the best choice going forward."

"What are you talking about, it"s not Murder, and it"s not senseless destruction either. Beasts such as that Stag exist just to help us people strive. They are supposed to be killed, that in itself is nature. Lesser beings such as Spirits, Beasts, or Monsters all exist only for people to grow. That is the teaching of our church, and I would a.s.sume that a G.o.ddess would agree with us there. After all, they should know the truth, shouldn"t they? So obviously it won"t be-"

"Oh man, how neat!" Arc exclaimed, and both Eiro and the Soldier looked at him surprised, although the Soldier was thinking that Arc was being convinced by the Church"s teachings, "Ah, so you can see the truth behind it now?" The Soldier asked with a smug expression, and Arc just shook his head with a bright smile.

"Not at all! I just got a new skill, it"s called "Idiot Language Comprehension"! I"m sure that"s going to come in really useful in the future, because right now I don"t understand any of your moronic rambling in the slightest!"