Demon's Virtue

He looked around at the different items in shock, picking them all up to look at them before staring at Eiro with a deep, dark glare. "You! What did you do?! That"s it, I will call the guards here right this moment! You are to be arrested immediately!" The worker exclaimed, but Eiro just looked at him a bit surprised.

"I thought that was only if I couldn"t pay for the damages." Eiro pointed out, and the worker immediately nodded his head. "Of course, but as there is no chance that it may be possible for you to pay for them, we don"t even need to consider that option! Or what, do you have the two gold coins that it would cost you?" The worker asked, in a manner that obviously showed his thoughts of "No way".

And seeing Eiro"s reaction of him hanging his head low, the worker grinned triumphantly. "See? Come with me yo-"

"This has to be a joke." Eiro sighed deeply, "You"re making such a ruckus for two gold coins? You mean regular gold coins, not large ones, right?" The Demon asked as he pushed his hand into his satchel, and the worker just stopped speaking with a puzzled expression as Eiro pulled out three small coins from his bag.

"Here. This is for all the damages." Eiro told him, and the worker looked at the three gold coins as if he just saw a ghost, "E-Erm, Sir, these are three coins. I think you accidentally m-miscounted..." The worker pointed out, immediately trying to be kind to Eiro again after seeing that he did actually have the money he wanted, but the Demon just shook his head annoyedly.

"I didn"t. I said they"re for all the damages, right? That includes the damages to come." The moment that Eiro said this, he stepped through the room and toward a heavy wooden door to the back, although the worker was unsure what he was talking about. Armodeus, on the other hand, slightly understood.

"Is... Is he back there?" He asked, and the Demon nodded his head, "Yep. I doubt he would let someone else work with the Gnome"s body, so I know what he smells like from these items now."

As Eiro was slowly moving his Life Force through his body to strengthen the power of his legs as much as possible, Nelli helped the Gnome prepare some magic rock that Eiro used to cover his leg in a thick, stable layer.

And with as much force as he could muster, Eiro pushed his leg forward against the door"s lock. With a loud crack and snap, the door swung open, nearly flying out of its hinges.

With heavy steps, Eiro let the magic rock crumble away from his leg as he let go of the Life Force in his body. And as the pain flowed through him, he kept walking forward toward the man standing inside of this room in front of burning coals.

"Irensen. That"s you, right?" Eiro aksed with a deep glare, and the man, who seemed to be a human, on the other side of the room immediately nodded his head, "I am, but who the h.e.l.l are you?" After Irensen placed his hammer and the blade he was currently working on onto his anvil, he stepped over toward Eiro.

"How dare you barge in here like that?!" He asked, but Eiro just kept glaring at him as he slowly stepped toward the forge. Just then, Nelli and the Gnome also entered the room, and Irensen immediately understood, "Wh-Why are you here?"

"Isn"t it pretty obvious?" Eiro asked as he held his hand over the burning coals. It was rock-coal, luckily, so Eiro was even able to manipulate it with his magic pretty well, especially since he had a pretty high affinity for both earth and fire magic.

As the glowing rocks floated around Eiro, the Demon manipulated them with rather simple movements of his hand.

"Huh, neat." Eiro said with a light smile on his face, and then turned his sight back toward the man in front of him, "Now then. I think we both know that you used these very coals to place parts of the gnome"s body into the things you made. How about instead, I use them to burn down this whole building together with your disgusting self?" The Demon asked with a light chuckle as he brought the coals closer toward Irensen.

"Of course, I won"t do that if you give me the rest of the Gnome"s body you have back, and tell me about each and every person that bought something with it in it." Eiro suggested. It was obvious that Irensen was already feeling the heat from the coals right now, from how nervous he was getting.

"Ar-Armodeus!" Irensen yelled out as he stared through the broken-down doorframe, "You took my t.i.tle from me, and now you"re letting a madman like this loose onto me?! What is wrong with you?" He screamed, and with a light glare, Eiro ran one of the smaller coals just so slightly over Irensen"s arm. It didn"t seem to have damaged him immensely Health-wise, but it apparently still hurt like s.h.i.+t.

A part of Irensen"s skin was singed away, after all.

"Don"t you dare try and push the blame on others. The reason I am here is you, because you"re a piece of s.h.i.+t that would take parts of this Gnome"s body." The Demon pointed out, "I wouldn"t have cared if it was something from a monster or person, but a spirit?"

With a confused expression, Irensen held his wound and looked at Eiro, "What difference does it make? Are you one of those spirit humpers or something?!"

"I"ll tell you what difference it makes." Eiro growled, "A living monster or person can"t feel parts of their body that were cut off anymore. Sure, there"s panthom pain, but they don"t truly feel what"s happening to the missing parts. Spirits are different. They constantly feel every part of their body no matter how far it"s away. They feel the heat, the touch, how each part of themselves is ground or ripped up." The Demon explained to Irensen. This was a sort of information that not so many had access to.

After all, not many spirits wanted their weaknesses to be known, although Nelli laid all of them out into the open the moment she and Eiro formed their contract.

"So give me each and every little grain of the Gnome"s body back." Eiro said with a deep glare, and Irensen stared over toward the shop-worker, "G-Get the box, immediately!" He exclaimed, seemingly scared for his life at this point, and the worker immediately did as he was told. He ran through the workshop and opened up a small safe hidden behind a s.h.i.+eld, from which he took a small wooden box.

Eiro could already tell that it contained part of the Gnome"s body. Slowly, the worker brought the box over toward Irensen, who didn"t hesitate to open the box up. He revealed a fist-sized chunk of rock, which was definitely the largest part that was missing from the Gnome.

The very moment that the spirit noticed the rock, it floated over toward it and absorbed it back into its body. This alone seemed to give it far, far more energy than it had before. It was floating around cheerfully, even "snuggling" up to Eiro, even if all it was really doing was just scratching his skin, considering that its body was made up of rocks. But something was off.

"Doesn"t it seem a little too cheerful? Shouldn"t we still be missing a lot?" Eiro asked, before Nelli slowly shook her head, "I don"t think so... Wait, you! Have you even sold any of those items yet?" She asked with a deep frown as she floated in front of Irensen"s body, and the craftsman just shook his head with a deep frown.

"We haven"t... Because n.o.body could properly use them." Irensen explained, "There aren"t as many magic-based warriors as you might expect. Because of that spirit"s body, all the different weapons required an enormous earth affinity, but the few that did have it weren"t warriors but instead mages! I was about to start working on a mage"s request for a staff that included the spirit"s body, but now I can"t even do that anymore..."

With a slight sigh that came both from relief and exhaustion, Eiro turned toward the Gnome right next to him, "I see... But does that mean there weren"t any people other than you that bought parts of its body? I thought..." Eiro started, but Irensen immediately explained since he wanted them all to just leave as quickly as possible.

"I hired different people so that I could buy as much of its body as I could! The salesman already made enough of an exception for me to let me buy as much as I did, but since he said he would be in town for only a few days, I had to try and get as much of the spirit"s body out of him as possible! It was a chance one couldn"t just pa.s.s up, after all!" Irensen explained.

To Eiro, it seemed like he was actually hoping for others to agree with his thoughts, but in the end, the Demon just glared at him with clear spite in his eyes.

He formed his hand into a fist, and all of the burning coals dropped onto the ground, immediately burning into it. It wouldn"t cause the place to burn down or anything, but it would leave some nasty marks. And of course, parts of the sparks burnt more of Irensen"s body.

"I"m leaving. Come." Eiro said with an angry grumble, stepping back out through the door that he broke down before, and was once more followed by Enka and Armodeus. The former was seemingly rather surprised at how this whole thing went down. After all...

"You have such control over three elements?" The chief warrior asked suspiciously, and Eiro just turned toward him quietly, before Enka simply started to chuckle, "Well, not that it"s any of my business anyway. But I"ve never seen anyone control coal in that way. That was pretty interesting though." He pointed out, and Eiro sighed in deep annoyance.

"Thanks. That"s my reason for existing. To be interesting to you." Eiro replied, and while Enka just loudly laughed, Armodeus just stared at the man... the thing, next to him. He still wasn"t sure what to think.

What truly was Eiro?