Demon's Virtue

At least that"s what Eiro was trying to achieve. In reality, it didn"t even remotely work out how the demon wanted it to. In the end, Gobo just kept on concentrating on the one enemy that he was currently fighting, and if he had to pay attention to something else, he would s.h.i.+ft all of his focus over toward that "something else" and then forget about the enemy that he was fighting before.

Seeing how this was the case despite Eiro continuosly trying to change it so that it wouldn"t, the demon realized something, "That"s somewhat like Arc"s cla.s.s-ability, isn"t it..?" Eiro muttered. If he thought about it, it may be possible to use this to their advantage instead of trying to get rid of this trait altogether. Obviously it would have some uses, seeing how well Arc was able to make use of it, but it also had obvious disadvantages. Once Eiro realized that this may not be all too bad, he stopped trying to distract Gobo to test something else out.

Gobo was currently fighting against a single enemy. There was nothing else around, nothing that he would need to pay attention to other than that single enemy. Eiro observed Gobo"s action while he was fighting this monster, and soon realized the benefits of this. Gobo was seeing everything that his enemy was doing. Every small movement, ever twitch, every physical decision it made. And that"s why he was able to actually overwhelm the enemy rather easily.

Eiro thought about it for a little while, trying to come up with the decision of whether or not Gobo should really focus on increasing the strength of this "tunnel vision", or if he should try and get rid of this altogether.

And to figure this out, Eiro tried to do something else the moment he noticed that Gobo stopped specifically paying attention to the now dead enemy. He took a rock and, in Gobo"s dead angle, threw it a bit of a distance away.

The very moment that Gobo heard that sound, he found what he was supposed to pay attention to next and stared at it intensely, although he quickly realized that it was just a rock and then let go of that again.

"Oh... So that"s it." Eiro muttered, "This tunnel-vision is really a strength after all, now isn"t it?" The Demon pointed out with a grin as he walked up to the Hobgoblin and placed his hand onto his shoulder.

"We"ll do a bit of a practice, alright? I"m going to throw three things into the air at once, and you have to tell me where exactly each of them landed, alright?"

The Hobgoblin looked at Eiro nervously, but in the end just nodded his head. He had been listening to everything that Eiro told him for the last little while, after all, so he grew used to the fact that Eiro was usually trying to improve Gobo in one way or another. He knew that he should listen to Eiro if he wanted to become a better Gobo, so that"s why he tried to listen to him perfectly, even if he couldn"t always execute the commands amazingly.

And so, Eiro quickly threw the three rocks he was holding into the air, and Gobo tried to follow all three of them. And because of the way that Eiro threw the rocks, they would land on the ground one after another, and not at the same time.

Gobo snapped his neck into the direction of the first rock once it landed on the ground and tried to remember where it was immediately after before focusing on his surrounding again. Then, the second rock hit the ground, and Gobo repeated the same thing. 

And now, Gobo just had the last of the three rocks left. And for that, he looked around and then took a quick step back after glancing up for a moment. Because the last of the rocks had been right above him. Immediately, Gobo managed to dodge the rock, and then turned toward Eiro to tell him the positions of all the rocks. But before he could speak, he noticed that Eiro seemed rather happy about something.

"Right, so that was it after all!" Eiro exclaimed, and the slime core in the bottle that Eiro was currently holding was a little bit confused, "What was it? You happy that he finally managed to dodge one of the rocks you threw?"

"Mhm, that"s exactly what I"m happy about." The demon pointed out bluntly, although it was just something that Bavet said without actually being serious. And then, he received his explanation for why exactly Eiro was this happy, "Gobo is horrible at concentrating at two things at once. But when he concentrates on one thing, then he goes all in. He gathers all the information he needs, does all that needs to be done, and doesn"t waste any time at it. At first I would have thought that he would just keep focusing on the first rock that fell down, just to be hit by the third one, but no. I told him to remember where the rocks landed, and that was all the information that he gathered from them individually before trying to focus on the next one." Eiro pointed out, "It seems like Gobo is actually pretty great at being able to distinguish between the raw information he gets in his peripherals, and then sorts through it to see what it is that he should focus on instinctively. This might actually be pretty good." The Demon added with a broad, excited grin, "I"m glad to see that you"re not useless as a leader after all, Gobo."

The Hobgoblin stared back at Eiro with a confused expression before tilting his head to the side, "Thank you... Master?" He asked, because he wasn"t entirely sure if it was a compliment or not, and Eiro immediately proceeded to start trying to think about how he should use Gobo.

"Either way, you wouldn"t be able to work alone. We need someone or something that can help you with anything that you can"t do. Something that will tell you to switch your focused attention to something else, that has everything else around you in view..." Eiro muttered quietly, before suddenly getting a pretty good idea for that.

"Heh, I think we should get you a familiar, Gobo." That was the conclusion that Eiro came to. There were many different types of familiars, really. The kind that would be useful in combat because they were particularly strong, the kind that was able to support you outside of combat with your everday tasks, or the kind that would be able to fill in for the things that you yourself missed. It seemed like Gobo would need one that could take on all those positions. A true partner that Gobo would trust without hesitation so that he would be able to really listen to his words within combat.

Eiro thought about it a bit more intensely, but in the end, he couldn"t really come up with a good familiar just yet, "Maybe Solomon has an idea where we can get some..." He muttered, before turning back toward Gobo who seemed simply puzzled at Eiro"s words.

"Master... what is a familiar?" He asked, and Eiro slightly raised his brows, "Ah, right, I guess I didn"t explain yet. A familiar is a being that"s directly linked to you. A partner that you can always count on. Lugo is my familiar, for example." Eiro explained as he stepped over toward the stag and rubbed over his snout, before Gobo slowly nodded his head.

"Gobo wants.... I want a familiar." He replied quickly, before Eiro just smiled back a bit, "Good, because it"s not up for debate anyway. I definitely can"t leave you to fend for yourself with that tunnel-vision, and I can"t be there all the time myself."

It seemed like Gobo already understood how important a good partner would be for him. The way that his personality changed from the chaotic way that he was before was rather pleasant, if Eiro had to be honest, so he turned toward Bavet in the bottle, "Hey, I think we should try and unseal Gobo"s monstrosity after his evolution. That should definitely be something like a "fixed" state afterward. It would only be harmful if we keep this up for too long, don"t you think?"

"Oi, what do you mean harmful? I"ve had my monstrosity sealed my whole life till you came, and I"m perfectly fine!" Bavet exclaimed, and Eiro slowly looked down at the bottle with a light smile on his face, "Yup, perfectly fine." He replied, "Well, my point still stands. I think it would be good to unseal it. It"s not like we can leave it sealed forever, that wouldn"t be a really good idea." The Demon pointed out.

"Well, first things first, he"s gotta evolve, right? So just shut it and let"s keep going!" The Slime screamed out, and Eiro slowly nodded his head while he proceeded to shake the bottle because Bavet tried to command him around, and then looked over toward Gobo.

"Alright, you need to kill just a few more monsters. Let"s get your evolution started before the sun goes down!" Eiro suggested, and Gobo slowly turned toward him and somewhat excitedly started looking around him to find monsters to fight. But luckily, Eiro already did that for him, and then proceeded to guide Gobo into the rough direction of where they were, so that the Hobgoblin could find them on his own. It didn"t seem like there were any particular issues with it this time, despite the fact that Gobo was fighting against two enemies at once. Individually they seemed to be rather weak, so Gobo was able to simply take one that he was focusing on first out nearly immediately, and then could focus completely on the second one, finis.h.i.+ng the fight within only a few moments.

In the end, it really did seem like Gobo was a talented fighter, there was no doubt about that, so they should all make sure to properly support him in that area as much as possible. Either way, now that Gobo killed these last two monsters, there was something else that they needed to focus on as well.

And that was Gobo"s evolution. It seemed like Gobo also had three choices that he could make.

He could specialize in magic, he could specialize in physical combat, and he could simply continue being a mix-match like he was now. It was obvious that both Eiro and Gobo would be alright with choosing that. Gobo pushed his mana into the metal orb and received the last of the "evolution-enhancements" placed into it, causing it to crumble into dust while Gobo chose the evolution he wanted to go for.