Demon's Virtue

"Everyone has their classes now, I assume?" Solomon asked with a smile, before he then turned back toward Eiro, "Was there something else you would like from me?" The King inquired, and Eiro slowly nodded his head, although he first turned his head to look at Felix.

"There is, but before then..." Eiro started, and Felix, who had been speechless the whole time they had been up here, was just staring back at Eiro with a bit of fear over what was about to happen. Felix knew that Eiro was aware of what he did before on the bridge, so he assumed he was going be ratted out, but instead, the Demon just shook his head, "Nevermind, I'll deal with that myself. There's something else I would like, though." Eiro said with a slight sigh. He really didn't know how to deal with Felix right now.

It seemed like Sammy was rather infatuated with him, and she was smiling for the first time ever since they started traveling, so Eiro figured that he could stay with them for a little while... But on the other hand, he was nothing but a thief and smooth-talker that most likely just wanted to get with Sammy because of her looks. Eiro would just make his choice later after seeing what would happen at the Inn.

Of course, the choice was only between Eiro forever scarring Felix so that he would never mess with anyone again, and Eiro giving him few knocks over the head so that he would stop being an idiot. He really just wanted to punch Felix, seriously.

But before then, there was something more important, something that Nelli had been trying to point out to Eiro as well, "In the second layer, there's someone selling parts of a Gnome's body." Eiro pointed out with a slight sigh, and immediately, not only Solomon but also Armodeus looked at him with confusion.

"Wait, do you mean the spirit or person?" Armodeus asked immediately but then shook his head, "You know what, that doesn't matter right now. Let's go."

"Wait." Solomon said as he held his hand in front of the Elder Dwarf as he wanted to head to the door, "What is it that you want to do, Eiro?" The King asked the Demon, who just slightly smiled, "Convince that man to sell me the rest of the stock." He pointed out, and immediately, Solomon nodded his head.

"I see. Then lead us there immediately." Solomon said in a dignified manner before Eiro simply nodded his head and stepped over toward the door, "Armodeus, are you coming as well?"

"Heh, what do you think?" The Elder Dwarf said with an angry frown, so Eiro just turned away again and chose to hold the door open so that his children could get out first. And then, the Demon led the way toward the gate that would bring them toward the second layer, and as King Solomon was directly behind him, the guards at the gate immediately opened it up without a moment's hesitation as the group made their way down into the second layer's town. It wasn't far away, just a ten-minute walk like this, and Eiro could soon hear something in the distance.

"...the end for tonight, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for..." The performing salesman exclaimed, and Eiro slowly turned around toward Solomon, "I'll go ahead. Nelli will lead you the rest of the way." Eiro told them, and immediately rushed forward with the help of Air magic while telling King Solomon something else, "Excuse me if I end up breaking a few bones."

And so, Eiro immediately climbed up the side of one of the houses, jumping over the streets and the different signs and decorations there to reach that stage as soon as he possibly could. Within just another minute, the Demon could already see the stage. The group of people watching had already increased manyfold and were currently trying to buy as much as possible of the Gnome's body.

But thinking that it would be a waste of time to have them sold and needing Eiro to go after even more of the people that bought it than he already had to, the Demon made a rather... risky choice.

Instead of waiting and assessing the situation for a few moments, he immediately jumped down the roof toward the salesman and kicked him in the face. As Eiro was feeling the impact on the bottom of his foot, he kicked away with as much force as he could muster, making the salesman drop onto the ground immediately while Eiro could stop his fall a bit more easily.

"Sorry about this, but it seems like none of you will be able to buy this tonight." Eiro said with a light smile on his face, just lightly turning his side toward the Gnome as it was floating there right next to him, seemingly about to just fall apart and die, while the salesman stood back up from that sudden attack.

"Wh-What do you think you're doing?! Who do you think you are?!" The salesman asked with deep, obvious frustration and anger, and Eiro just lightly turned around toward him and before the salesman could actually properly stand again, he kicked him into this stomach.

"Shut up, you piece of trash." Eiro growled quietly and then turned back toward the people in the crowd, some of which already started leaving after seeing that the salesman was attacked.

"Don't even try, I can smell the parts of this gnome's body for miles. You won't be able to hide from me. So just return here and give it back to me. Understood?" Eiro yelled out loudly, noticing that the few nobles that bought something slowly stopped moving. Although just then, Eiro noticed some spears being pointed toward him.

"Stand down! Who do you think you are?!" A regular town-guard exclaimed, but Eiro just glared back at him, "The guy that's going to rip your throat open if you don't put that toothpick away." Eiro replied, and while the guard flinched slightly, Eiro turned back around toward the salesman that once more tried to stand up. But before he could actually do so, Eiro kicked him into the side of his face and made him drop down onto the floor again.

"Stay where you belong. On the ground. If you try to stand up again, you're done for." The Demon announced in a clear tone, but just then, the guard that just spoke to Eiro stabbed his spear toward him. But compared to the Puppets' dagger-stabs, this was just incredibly slow.

With a quick step to the side, Eiro dodged and just grabbed the spear, using some water that he had with him in a bottle to freeze his hand to the spear's surface so that the guard couldn't pull it away while manipulating his Life Force to get a solid stand on the ground.

And a moment later, when the Guard tried to pull the spear away with all the force he could possibly muster, a man spoke up with a light chuckle, "How interesting this is. Young man, are you seriously standing up for that half-dead, incomplete spirit? You have a good heart, but you're using it for the wrong thing, how about you-"

But before the man could finish what he was saying, Eiro already pulled an earth magic stone out of his treasury and pushed his mana inside to cover the magic stone in a layer of hard rock, and then threw that whole thing right into the man's stomach.

"Shut it. It's half-dead because of this piece of shit over there. And it's not an 'incomplete' spirit, it's just a young one. Are you saying that children are incomplete people? Well, your children might be, but that's because they inherited the lack of brain you obviously seem to suffer from." Eiro growled deeply, looking at the man as he was cowering over, just throwing up onto the ground after that sudden impact.

It wasn't enough to do any serious damage, really, but because it was a critical hit, it had to cause some sort of negative effect on the man, and vomiting was one of the more basic ones that could always happen in any situation.

But it seemed like that was something that none of the people here really appreciated, and with a laugh, another man stood up from one of the chairs. But different from all the other people here, he wasn't dressed in fine clothes, but rather ragged ones. They were slightly singed around the edges of the sleeves, even.

"Hah, how interesting. You just threw a rock into a duke's stomach. I like you, kid. Figh- Holy mother of- Let me finish talking, you ass!"

Immediately after that man started speaking, Eiro did his best to get some of the smaller rocks around here to gather in his hand and started just chucking them at that man as well. But this one, at the very least, was able to dodge. But that was fine since the rocks kept hitting the guy that made that idiotic comment before.

"What do I care if I just hit a duke? He could be a king for all I care, anyone that makes a shitty comment like that can fuck off." Eiro pointed out with a clear tone, and at that point, the man just kept laughing, "Oh yeah, you're really interesting." The man said, and then hit both of his fists together, swiftly creating a spark that ignited around both of the man's arms.

After seeing that, Eiro was actually rather speechless. "Hah, you're impressed, aren't you?!" The man exclaimed, but without hesitation, Eiro shook his head.

"Nope. I'm just kind of marveling this idiotic scene." Eiro pointed out, "What kind of use does it have to cloak your hands in that? You can obviously create sparks on your own without tools somehow. Why don't you just ignite them after you hit someone? You wouldn't be wasting as much mana as you're now, and you wouldn't have to worry about literally burning your skin either. I am pretty impressed that you're not burning alive right now though, I'll give you that." Eiro said with a deep frown, and with an angry expression, the man just jumped forward.

"Fuck off!" He exclaimed, but Eiro didn't really care too much about this. The man was obviously using all he had to accelerate as much as he could, so without hesitation, Eiro pushed the Gnome to the side and just jumped away last second, making the man land on the stage, nearly burning up the cloth that was hanging from it.

And the next moment, the man just swung his arms and tried to hit Eiro, but the Demon had already prepared for that. With a quick pulled the red curtains from the stage in front of him, and the moment that the man hit him, wrapped them around him. The curtains soon caught fire, and after Eiro cut through them, there was just a wiggling mass of flames laying on the ground, with the man trying to escape.

Perfectly, that was the moment when King Solomon arrived. The Guards belonging to the duke immediately ran over to the royal guards, trying to get their help, and even the Duke himself turned toward King Solomon.

"My King! This man is trying to assassinate all these important people! Please do something!" The Duke exclaimed, and Eiro looked at Solomon, "Eh? That guy's from Skyhart? The way he spoke, I thought he was from Zhurgard or something."

"He used to be, yes." Solomon sighed deeply, and then turned toward the Duke again, "That man is my benefactor. He is not here to assassinate anyone. Rather, he is here to help stop the demise of an innocent, young being. Who is in charge here?" King Solomon asked, and without hesitation, as the flames that were enveloping the man that attacked Eiro went out, the Demon picked up the salesman by his neck and shoved him forward.

"This guy's in charge." Eiro explained, although, for a moment, he was rather focused on something else. And that was that the guy with the flaming arms that tried attacking Eiro and Felix were locking eyes, both seeming rather confused about what the other was doing there.