Demon's Virtue

Eiro looked around himself, trying to find the nearest Ground-Crawler, a stealthy bug-like monster that usually had a carapace covered in things like rocks, dirt, moss, and small plants. They had pretty potent paralysis venom, and since they attacked anything they could see using that venom, they were a threat to even high-level people, since even they didn't usually have amazing resistance against things like poisons or venoms. And since they were incredibly hard to spot before it was too late, this was a request that wasn't taken all too often except in special cases.

And this time was a quite special case, since Eiro was the leader of the party. Eiro had already proven multiple times within the guild that he had incredible perception and could see through things like stealth quite easily, so the people at the guild actually came forward first and asked Eiro and the others top take on the request. These Ground-Crawlers recently became rather troublesome and increased in numbers quite a bit, so as many of them had to be taken out as possible.

Honestly, this came in at quite an amazing time. Monsters that only they would end up fighting. And of course, they could spend as much time on this as they needed. They didn't even need to hand in any sort of special materials for this, they just had to prove that the Ground-Crawlers were killed. That meant that Eiro could cut these bugs open and store their venom somewhere.

This would definitely be useful for the infiltration of the Organization. Because there was a bit of a problem. While Eiro knew that he should be able to produce things like venom in his stinger himself, no matter what he tried, it simply didn't work. And so, until he figured that out, he would need to rely on external sources.

Of course, there was also another benefit to this. Eiro slowly pulled out a little bit of the paralysis venom out of the bottle he kept it in and then quickly led it to his mouth before ingesting it. It was a very small amount, enough to only somewhat restrict Eiro's bodily functions, but it was still enough to give him a bit of practice for a certain skill.

[You have been affected by Minor Paralysis. All physical movements will be restricted by 30%]

[Beginner Toxin Resistance has leveled up!]

"Perfect." Eiro muttered quietly as his body shuddered in response to the venom travelling through his body. It was a good idea to switch between ingesting it and pushing it into a cut in his arm, since that was really the main difference.

If a toxin took effect through ingestion, touch, or inhalation, it was a poison. If it took effect by contract through a wound, for example after being bitten by a snake or stung by a bee, it was a venom. Sure, there were more minor differences, but the system seemed to be happy with the first explanation.

Because when Eiro first swallowed this substance, he received the 'Beginner Poison Resistance', and when he pushed it into a small cut he created on his arm, he received the 'Beginner Venom Resistance' skill.

Those two then combined and became the 'Beginner Toxin Resistance' skill. Really, Eiro should have just done this sometime earlier. Sure, he was never really met with things like poison or venom, as he was usually able to avoid it, but now that he played in the big leagues and would continue meeting people with rather unique, diverse skillsets, it was only a matter of time until he met someone or something that was capable of using poisons.

Having a resistance against those should come in useful, definitely. Especially if he would end up using venom himself. It would be a bit bothersome if he ended up somehow injuring or infecting himself using different substances. He wasn't sure if he was going to be innately resistant against those.

With a wry, disgusted smile, James stared at the Demon, "The hell are you doing, you masochist? Won't you stop finally doing that? What if something happens and we need you?"

"Oh~? Does that mean you're scared without me? I mean, it makes sense for a minion to be useless without their master." Eiro chuckled lightly, but soon had a black dagger held in front of his face, "I'll kill you, you know?" James growled, but Eiro just continued to smile.

"Heh, go ahead and try, my dear minion." The Demon replied. And soon, he heard someone else complain similarily, "Oi, I'll help him if you don't stop this! I know venom doesn't work on my like normal, but it's still not pleasant!" Bavet exclaimed loudly, and Eiro slowly turned his head toward the slime that was currently enveloping a Ground-Crawler with his body.

"...What are you doing?" Eiro asked him, and Bavet just stopped for a moment. Despite the fact that he didn't have eyes right now, the Demon could still feel the Slime staring at him intensely, "I'm killing this thing, but you said I can't transform, so it's going to take a while... You want me to strengthen my acid, right?" Bavet asked, and Eiro immediately shook his head, "The complete opposite, actually."

Eiro quickly made Bavet 'spit out' the Ground-Crawler and then looked back at the slime, "What I meant was that you should keep the base shape of a slime. Or rather, the shapelessness of a slime. I want you to strengthen your transformation abilities."

"Then how the fuck am I supposed to kill that thing while I'm in the shape of a slime? And how's that gonna strengthen my transformation? Are you an idiot?" Bavet asked, but Eiro just slightly glared at him, "Just because I'm a bit nicer to you doesn't mean you can speak to me like that, you know?"

"...right, sorry..." The slime apologized nervously, but the Demon just sighed, "Don't worry. Just start properly listening to me from now on. I said to keep the base form of a slime, not that you can't transform. Change your shape into things that aren't specific objects you've seen before, but rather... concepts. You've done it before, when you were leading me, Sammy and Leon up the mountain. You slashed a part of your slime body toward me and turned it into a sharp blade, but it wasn't a particular object. You just took the concept of a blade and applied it to yourself. That's what I want you to do."

"Oh..." The slime muttered, "So that's it? You want me to practice changing different parts of myself into completely different things, is that it?"

"Amongst other things, yeah. I just want you to get your control up as much as possible. These things will influence your possible evolutions, after all." Eiro pointed out. The slime slowly wiggled his body, probably his equivalent of nodding his head, and then concentrated on the Ground-Crawler again. Once more, Bavet enveloped the bug-like creature with his own body, but instead of trying to dissolve it like before, he did something else.

He turned parts of his insides into needles that he then pressed right into the Ground-Crawler's weaker areas, quickly killing it before spitting it back out, "So that was what you wanted me to do?" Bavet asked, and with a satisfied expression, the Demon nodded his head.

"Mhm, that's exactly it. Good job. Just keep doing that, and try to come up with different, new ways to kill them that don't require you to change your base shape into something else entirely."

"Sounds bothersome though..." Bavet slightly complained, but at this point, Eiro already stopped paying too much attention to him, and instead turned over toward the second one that really needed that attention. Gobo.

Eiro was trying to make sure to teach him in different combat-based disciplines depending on what kinds of things he had talent for, but somehow he didn't understand that he didn't need to try and do everything all at once, but instead should just try and switch between different abilities to make everything a little more efficient.

For example, trying to cast a spell while swinging your blade toward someone may seem like a pretty good idea to save time, but in the end that's just going to turn into sloppy spellcasting and swordsmanship. Those that had a hard time multitasking would never be able to do this kind of thing, and while Gobo certainly was intelligent compared to other Goblins or Hobgoblins, he still wasn't that smart.

Eiro was able to do this kind of thing at this point in time, but even then that would mean that he had to concentrate really hard, and often Eiro would even make a small mistake. They were never at the level of costing him his life or something, and Eiro was able to judge the situations properly for when he could and couldn't make use of this, but Gobo was different. He really wasn't capable of doing that, and didn't particularly seem too interested in it either. Instead of focusing on the big picture, he was concentrating on the details. He didn't let his eyes move away from the target, his main enemy.

To an extent that was a good thing, but it was something that could cost him his life if he was fighting against multiple enemies at once. And considering the time that Eiro already put into trying to raise Gobo into a proper fighter and asset, it would just be a complete and utter waste to let something like that simply happen without even trying to do something about it. After all, Gobo was supposed to be the leader of the Goblin village. A leader that wasn't capable of properly paying attention to others wasn't necessarily the greatest thing there was.

And so, just while Gobo was trying to attack one of the Ground-Crawlers that Eiro revealed for him, the Demon threw a small rock at him. Not hard enough to cause him any proper damage, but still enough to annoy and confuse him for a moment or two.

"M-Master, what are you doing?" Gobo asked with a slight jolt, but Eiro simply kept staring at him, something that Gobo for some reason reciprocated, simply staring back into Eiro's eyes. Meanwhile, the Ground-Crawler jumped at Gobo, although Eiro quickly threw a rock at it, this time pretty hard, to stun it for a moment or two, at which point Gobo turned back toward it. He really seemed to have an issue with tunnel-vision.

"Gobo, keep paying attention to that Ground-Crawler." The Demon exclaimed, and after making sure that Gobo at the very least heard him say this, he continued throwing small rocks at Gobo's body, until he would be able to properly dodge, or at the very least react to them. This would really take a while, wouldn't it?