Demon's Virtue

"Now then, dear Pyromancer. How about it? Will you fight me now? If you beat me, you can leave alive, you know?" Eiro pointed out, and the Pyromancer stared at the Demon in front of him in terror, before he felt something on his back.

It was the hand of his superior, Rumia. At first, the Pyromancer thought he was going to be encouraged, but it was rather different, "Go on already! F-Fight that monster for the sake of my life!" Rumia exclaimed, making the Pyromancer stare at the Baron in angry confusion. But soon, he just turned back toward Eiro and gulped deeply. He knew that he couldn"t leave if he didn"t kill this Demon right here and now.

And then he realized something. He was definitely at an advantage here. Fire manipulated through magic had the benefit of being able to grow to an immense volume with the slightest spark as a base, since it would just burn the user"s mana to spread. While Water Magic was rather powerful, especially once you had a contracted spirit, the speed at which a Spirit could create water was still low compared to the speed at which a trained Pyromancer could create incredibly hot flames.

Letting out a slight laugh, the Pyromancer became more confident. The higher his confidence rose, the louder his laugh. Soon, he held his hand forward, where he had two chips of a special metal on his thumb and index finger to create an initial spark and then stared at Eiro. The Pyromancer seemed rather mad or crazy in this situation, which n.o.body could really blame him for.

After all, he was supposed to single-handedly kill this being that just got rid of two dozen men within a matter of minutes, and just got the hope of doing so.

Although, the Pyromancer was rather confused as Eiro started walking around the place a bit and just touched the bodies of everyone he just killed with his wooden hand, and was even more confused when Eiro looked at him as if he was an idiot.

"Go on, you can get started. I"ll be ready in a bit." The Demon explained with a gentle smile, and continued doing whatever he was doing, while the Pyromancer was doubting himself.

"Is he looking for something?" He asked himself, "Is there something that could help him win a battle of magic?" The Pyromancer thought, but either way, after a little while he couldn"t just keep thinking about it and had to act instead.

He snapped his fingers, but failed to create the spark that he needed because he was so nervous. So, he tried again, but failed once more. "Come on, come on..." He muttered to himself, and then once more snapped his fingers to create a spark that soon turned into proper flames above the Pyromancer"s hand, which he swiftly moved toward his staff.

A large flame larger than even Rumia now floated above the Pyromancer, and he soon wore another broad grin, seeing that Eiro hadn"t even started creating any water at all, "Hahah! This is my win!" The Pyromancer exclaimed, and the large flame started to split up into many smaller ones that one after another started flying toward Eiro, who was just smiling a bit as he stood up.

And before anyone knew it... Eiro caught the first flame, "H-Huh..?" The Pyromancer muttered instinctively at seeing this, and Eiro laughed lightly as he relatively easily dodged the other flames in response to the Pyromancer"s wavering attention.

"Thanks for the fire, bud." Eiro replied, and then swiftly started to increase the size of the flame that he just "caught". It looked that way, but in reality, he just took control over them. The thing with magic was that while it was relatively easy to control it while it was around your body, it was quite hard to do so at a distance. And so, especially when it came to attacks that split up into many pieces like the one the Pyromancer just went with, the Fire wasn"t under the control of anything anymore.

So, Eiro, who had rather good physical resistance against heat and fire in general, stopped the flames" motion with his hand and took control over them with his own mana, making them his own. He wouldn"t be attacking with this, of course, since he promised it would be a fight between fire and ice, but he wanted to use the heat from this fire for something else.

And so like this, he finally managed to drain the last of the corpses right here, "Well then, let"s hope that my Butchering can actually help me out here..." The Demon said with a curious smile, and then formed his wooden hand into a fist, before the blood that he had pulled out of the bodies of these corpses gathered around him.

To make the process of butchering a bit quicker, he had tried his best to control the blood of other beings beside himself so that they wouldn"t have to wait for everything to bleed out first. This worked quite well, albeit only to this extent when the one the blood belonged to was actually dead.

And since blood was largely water and as such could be controlled by Water Magic, Eiro was able to freeze it in this manner as well. Although, apparently not every water mage could properly control blood as well, but Eiro didn"t care about "Every water mage". As long as he could, he didn"t care about others.

Once the blood gathered around him, Eiro made it tower up toward his right hand so that it didn"t need to climb up his clothes and possibly stain them any further than they already were. The blood gathered around his wooden hand and formed a rather large pillar of it between the ground and that hand. Of course, there was also a fair amount of blood simply spread flatly around the area that Eiro could also somewhat control, since it was connected to his hand through the other blood.

And then, Eiro pressed the flames in his other hand against the blood, trying to use the heat from them to make the blood boil a lot more quickly, making it just give off a rancid, dirty smell. At least that"s what the Pyromancer and Rumia experienced it as.

"Alright, I"m ready. Hm? Why haven"t you been attacking anymore?" Eiro asked as he looked at the Pyromancer in confusion, although the man there was just looking at him in shock at what was happening right here. With a shrug, Eiro swung his hand forward and made the boiling blood fly toward the Pyromancer, before freezing directly around his body.

The flames at the end of his staff were already extinguished at that point, though. As Eiro took a step toward the deep red boulder of ice that contained the Pyromancer, the Demon could do nothing but sigh.

"How disappointing. I didn"t need to do all this for this guy, now did I?" Eiro thought with a slight sigh, and then swiftly turned around and grabbed a small bottle from his satchel before walking over toward the man who was half-dead already after having his throat stabbed through.

"Congrats, you can keep your life for now." Eiro said with a smile as he pushed the weakened man to his back and poured the contents of the bottle over his throat. It was refined water that he and Nelli prepared beforehand, and now just started to slowly heal the man"s throat with the help of a rather simple spell. "Naiad, logris urtur krus thul orgum, jiad harr wa.s.s. Jiadis Naia." He muttered quietly, and soon, the wound in the man"s throat started to slowly heal.

"Hmm, that guy is running away right now, you know?" Nelli pointed out as she looked at where Rumia was before, and Eiro nodded his head with a light laugh, "Of course I know. But he won"t be able to run from me for long anyway, so let"s give him a little hope for now." Eiro replied, and within a few minutes, finally healed the man"s throat completely before leaning down toward the man"s ear with a grin to tell him the message that he was supposed to give to his higher-ups, and then turned around again.

It seemed like everyone had fled the central place by now, as Eiro would have thought, and not even the men from the village militia dared come up to Eiro anymore.

And so, while the Demon could still hear Rumia trying to flee, Eiro stepped up toward the Lady of Autumn who was just sitting there in the center of the statues.

"Well then." She said quietly, "I did not expect things to go this way..."

"Oh? Did you not? Didn"t you do all this to see something interesting happen while you were still here?" Eiro replied with a deep glare, and the Lady of Autumn looked at Eiro with a slight smirk, "Smart Boy! Of course~. And don"t worry, I doubt my sisters took your little "opinion" on us seriously. You obviously didn"t mean it for them, after all." The Lady pointed out, and Eiro nodded his head.

"Obviously. I did mean what I said about you though. You"re absolutely insufferable, and I"m glad I don"t have to ever see you again." The Demon replied with a light smile, to which the Lady could only respond with a quiet laugh.

"Truly amusing up to the very end. Now then, let"s hope we will be able to see each other again during that little war. No matter which side you take." The Lady told Eiro, who was just completely confused at what she just said.

"What? What do you mean? You"re actually going to help them out in this crazy war?" Eiro asked, and the Lady of Autumn replied with a smile, "Of course I will. I"m rather bored, you see? I want to experience a little excitement every now and then. The perfect way for that is war, isn"t it?" As such she explained, as if it was the most normal thing in the world, and Eiro ground his teeth and just glared at her.

"Fine, whatever. But don"t involve me or the other ladies with that piece of s.h.i.+t country." The Demon growled, and before the Lady of Autumn even replied, he got moving while the Lady just waved at him with a chuckle.

"Let"s meet again, love!" She exclaimed, and then disappeared into a storm of leaves as Eiro called over Lugo with a whistle and climbed onto the Stag"s back. "How annoying..." Eiro growled annoyedly in response to hearing the Lady"s words, and then looked over at Nelli, who was looking at the Demon with a slight frown.

"What is it?" He asked, and the Spirit just sighed deeply, "I can"t believe you just killed everyone there in the middle of town. I mean, the fight itself was rather impressive, but I didn"t expect you to be that rash..." She explained, "What if for example Tom spreads the news about you and the children wouldn"t be able to live a normal life ever."

"Don"t worry about that." Eiro said, but Nelli just looked at him confusedly, "Why shouldn"t I worry about that?"

"Because there"s no need to. In the midst of that chaos, Tom was rather calm, and even told me that he would keep my secret. From afar, of course. But he knew about my increased perception, which I didn"t tell him about. So, he must have understood that by hearing that Jura died. If that was the case, then Jura must have told Tom himself, meaning that Tom is trustworthy enough." The Demon pointed out.