Demon's Virtue

Chapter 631: Unconventional Classes

Eiro stepped out into the manor’s gardens. Shimour, who followed behind him, took a look around with a chuckle, “I thought it when I came over here, but I doubt this is what this place always looked like, right?”

The Demon turned toward him with a raised brow, and then back at the gardens in front of him. It was true that it wasn’t anything like when Eiro was first given this place. Most of it had been turned into personal training areas. The manor’s barracks were reserved for the soldiers that Eiro brought with him from the Monster Town, including the training area there. He would practice there every once in a while, trying to instruct the monsters to improve their techniques and physical strength, but for the most part him and his party would train out here. It had enough space for them to just go all-out without disturbing anyone, and could be fine-tuned toward everyone’s training without issue.

For example, currently, Krog and James were doing their own types of specialized training. Krog had a large boulder in front of him that he had to move across his training area, while James had heavy weights strapped to his limbs while doing training to increase his precise footwork and balance. As Jess was a mage, she mostly did research in the library and only came out here to practice specific spells, for which Eiro set up an area where she didn’t have to worry about destroying anything with her elemental attacks.

The kids all also had their own areas where they could go wild, though that was of course mostly limited to Arc. Clementine was a healer and Rudy a craftsman, so neither of them really did much training out here beside to keep themselves healthy. Sammy did use the archery range that Eiro prepared for her, but she was mostly focused on learning how to properly control her voice. She was starting to make more friends at school, but she still wasn’t fully comfortable speaking much, which was taking quite the toll on her. Eiro gave her a room to practice where her voice couldn’t leak out; he himself could barely hear her, and only then when he really focused.

Well, there was still the small play-area he prepared for Leon. Ever since he started maturing as a Beastman, he would either sleep, or want to play actively. Luckily, he found the perfect playmate in Bavet, who could go along with everything the young boy wanted to do, even if not technically voluntarily.

Then, scattered across the place, were numerous different herbs and trees of different kinds that Eiro was growing for a variety of reasons, so it really did look quite busy especially at first glance. Ariella did make him at least make it visually pleasing to a certain extent, so it’s not that it looked particularly bad. Just different from what you would expect when entering through the manor’s front.

In the end, Eiro simply shrugged, “It’s just how it turned out.”

“Right. Anyway, where are we doing this?” Shimour asked, looking around with his arms crossed. Eiro wouldn’t be surprised if he did that on purpose; he was wearing a sleeveless shirt too. Sure, it did give a lot of freedom of movement, but considering how attention-grabbing Shimour’s arms were, the only reason Eiro could come up with was that he was trying to brag with his body a little. Which was once again weird, considering Shimour was a Master of Stealth.

Eiro thought about it for a moment, and then looked at James and Krog, “You two, take a break for a little,” he said, and the two of them looked over surprised. Eiro would usually try to make them work even more than they already did, so asking them to take a break was nothing less than shocking.

They both walked over toward the Demon connfused, trying to figure out what was going on. It was only when the two of them stood only a few meters away that James took notice of the giant man towering behind Eiro.

Instinctively, he flinched and tried to grab the dagger he always carried at his side, even during training, but only grabbed empty air. His already pale face went white, but Eiro just let out a loud sigh, “Shimour, stop playing around. Give that back to him.”

“So strict, just like Jura,” Shimour groaned, holding his hand forward to give the dagger he took from James’ hip back to him. Suspiciously, James took it and placed it back into its sheath, not removing his hand from it. For safety, he also placed his other hand on its twin-dagger.

Krog looked at Shimour with a frown, “Who is this guy?”

“Ah, I told you about him. Krog, James, this is Shimour, he’s a Master of the Stealth skill. Shimour, these are James and Krog, two of my party members.”

“…These guys are your party members? They’re sort of weak compared to you, right?”

Both Krog and James would have tried to protest, but they were still stuck on Eiro’s words. A master currently stood in front of him; a master of a skill that could be used to kill them instantly at that. They were used to being around Armodeus by now, especially considering his personality. Coperia was still hard to deal with, but she never really bothered interacting with them much in the first place. But this was different; especially since Shimour looked quite intimidating to them.

Eiro looked at the large man behind him, “They’re not weak.”

“Weaker than you.”

“You can’t compare it like that, though. I’m literally a Royal monster and possess multiple Arcane artifacts that led me onto the best path possible from the beginning. These guys don’t have anything like that. They only have their own hard work. Not to mention, their rate of growth is ridiculous.”

Shimour looked at James and Krog, both of them clearly steeling themselves against his stare, “…What do you mean?”

“They were pretty average C-Rank adventurers just half a year ago. Now they’re S-Rank.”

“That’s… ridiculously impressive. I guess I underestimated you guys… huh?” Shimour pointed out, noticing that Krog and James’ focused shifted away from him onto Eiro.

“The fuck did you just say?” James let out, “S-Rank? I mean yeah, but that’s just in name, cause you’re with us!”

Eiro raised a brow, “No, I’m pretty sure you’re as strong as S-Ranks now. I mean, you’re stronger than the average S-Rank at the very least. Once you guys change back to your advanced classes, you’ll be stronger than nearly everyone that became a ‘Hero Companion’.”

James and Krog looked at each other confused. They didn’t know what to say. Shimour became curious, though, “What are your guys’ classes right now?”

Krog sighed with an annoyed tone, “I’m a Sherpa right now.”

“Hold on, you’re a Porter?” Shimour asked baffled, quickly turning to Eiro, but he just shrugged. Krog scratched the back of his head, “I mean, not all the time. I cycled through basic warrior classes for a while, then switched to basic heavy warrior classes… Once I was done with the ones I could access at that point, Eiro made me switch to Porter classes. I took ‘Beginner Porter’, ‘Porter’, and then ‘Sherpa’. Eiro said I’m well on my way to unlocking ‘Nomad’, so that’ll be next. Their class skills are pretty good for increasing physical strength, even if they don’t add damage… The stat growth in itself is pretty useful though.”

Shimour glanced over at James, who was already hiding his face annoyed, “What about you?”

“Do I have to say?”

“Come on, dude, just out with it,” Krog said teasingly, bumping James’ shoulder with his elbow. James let out a deep sigh and looked up at Shimour, though not before angrily glancing at Eiro, “He made me become a ‘Ballroom Dancer’.”

Even shimour was a bit baffled at this point, looking down at Eiro, “But…”

“Don’t look at me like that. His body is perfect for dance. His ligaments are ridiculously flexible, and his natural balance works best with dance, even better than combat. I’m just trying to have him learn how to best make use of that. Once he learns to combine dance with combat a bit, the way he’s going to move in a fight will go down in history, I tell you.”