Demon's Virtue

Eiro walked up the hill, slow and steadily. He wanted to take this moment in properly, now that he had finally been here again after so long. Everything was how they had left it. Well, nearly, at least... Everything was a bit more dirty and overgrown, but that was to be expected.

The rest was in place. The barn they kept the animals in, Eiro's side-hut where he would spend his time writing and working on woodcarvings, and of course the main house, where all of them had lived for years.

The Demon took a deep breath as he pushed the door open. The dust that had gathered in here was pushed around and twirled in the light let in through the door and windows. Slowly, the Demon stepped inside and took a look around.

He turned his head to the side, quickly seeing the chair that Jura always sat on. Everyone's beds in the other part of the room. And of course the wall that was covered with numerous different seeds. Some of them seemed to have sprouted already, but that should be fine.

"I guess I should just get this over with for now." Eiro muttered quietly as he stopped taking the energy of this room in. This nostalgic air that made him never want to leave again. But of course, Eiro knew that he had to leave, so he forced himself to move his feet around nonetheless.

He quickly grabbed the glass bottles that were on the wall and one by one took them out of there. He carved a number and a letter into each one to make sure he would remember where each of them stood. Jura had a particular system to how he sorted these, so Eiro didn't want to mess that up.

And as Eiro was putting these glass bottles into his Satchel, that he had emptied out just for this trip, Bavet kept looking around the room with a curious mind, "This is where you all lived for such a long time?"

"Yeah, it is..." Nelli said with a voice that showed that she was indulging in the nostalgia just as much as Eiro was.

Meanwhile, as Nelli started to tell a few stories about this place as she was reminiscing about them, Eiro found some of the things that he wanted to come here for. Seeds that were a match for James, as well as seeds that were a match for Charles. Now he could finally get started in letting them grow their own trees for their prosthetics.

Eiro marked them with a small star above the number he carved into the bottles, and quickly placed them into his satchel together with the others. Once Eiro was done, he slowly left the room and made his way to the side-hut, quickly followed by the others, of course.

Inside of the hut, Eiro immediately saw his wall of books towering in the corner of the room. Some of them started being eaten by bugs, so he wouldn't be able to take them with him. Even so, Eiro had all of them in the library in his mind anyway, so there was no need for him to take them with him. If he wanted to re-read them, he could do so wherever and whenever he wanted to.

Now, there was only one book that Eiro really needed to carry with him at all times, and that was the special Grimoire that he randomly found in one of the small shops of the capital.

He still wondered how that even got there, but when he visited that place, the old man that sold the book to him was nowhere to be found, and there weren't any clues about him either. Anyway, Eiro was really only in here for sentimental reasons. There was nothing here that he needed. He just wanted to see it again. And maybe he was using this to delay the thing that he had to do next.

Eiro took a deep breath as he left the room again, making his way around the building. There, at its side, the Demon found the place he was looking for. Jura's Grave.

He knelt down onto the ground and looked at the Tombstone. Slowly, the Demon held his left hand flat forward and the tips of his right hand's fingers onto his left palm. Slowly, he pulled his wooden little- and ring-finger onto his right hand's palm, placing his thumb onto his ring-finger, before pulling in his other two fingers so that only the knuckles of the index- and middle-finger were touching the palm of Eiro's left hand.

This was the hand-sign you would do when praying to the Goddess of Life, the Goddess that Jura believed in. He wasn't an avid believer or anything like that, and would usually never pray to her at all, but every once in a while as he was going through hardships he would end up making this symbol as he looked up into the sky.

And slowly, as Eiro wanted to use this symbol to pay respects to Jura, he felt a shiver of pain moving throughout his body starting at his hands. He gave off a bit of smoke as this happened, but it was over after an instant as well. Eiro barely took any damage either.

But it was enough to relay the message. The message that Eiro's prayer was being heard, since his body was filled with Holy Energy for an instant.

Slowly, Eiro let his hands drop down onto the ground as he began to speak, "A lot has happened since you left. The kids are going to school now. I've grown a lot stronger, fought a lot of powerful enemies. I found out a lot of things about me... I suffered a lot, but I managed to pull through in the end. And you wouldn't believe it, but I'm a Royal Candidate now! Although... I don't know if that's something to be happy about or not..." Eiro explained in a quiet voice, the same voice that he would use when speaking to Jura a lot of the time.

The voice that he used when him and Jura would speak in the middle of the night while the children were asleep, so that Eiro wouldn't end up waking them.

"Ah, Nelli's also here. She's doing amazingly, but she misses you just as much as I do, if not more." The Demon said as he turned his head to look at the Naiad, softly smiling next to him.

For a few hours, Eiro proceeded to tell Jura about all that happened in detail. As much as Eiro was hesitating to do this before, he didn't want to let go of this moment anymore.

He wanted to speak to this old man a little longer.

---

"Are you sure you did everything that you wanted to do here?" Gondos asked, looking at Nelli and Eiro. The two of them instantly nodded their heads, "Yeah. I am, at least." Eiro explained quickly, "I loaded all of the wood I wanted to bring onto the cart that we still had here. I'm stabilizing it with nature magic and gravity magic from the magic stone. It should be able to last until we're at Town. I'll have it shipped to the capital from there."

"Eh? There's a town around here?" Sarius asked surprised, and Eiro turned his head toward him, "Of course, I would always go there to buy different things, once a week. It's the place that the four Ladies would always head to." Eiro explained, as he helped Lugo with the cart by just pushing forward a bit. It would probably take a while like this, but they should be able to get the wood to the Town by sundown.

"Hey, don't blame me for not expecting a town to be here in the middle of nowhere." Sarius complained, and Eiro just lightly smiled at him, "I get it, don't worry about it." The Demon said.

But from then on, Eiro tried to concentrate on getting the wood to the village safely, properly getting rid of the snow on the ground and hardening the surface that Lugo would be pulling the card over, to make sure that they would be able to advance at the highest speed possible right now. Of course, that 'highest speed' was still just the same speed as a regular cart trip, but that was surprising in itself considering the amount of cargo placed onto it.

And to also hide the path that the group took, Eiro would place new snow onto the areas that they already walked over. A few hours later, not too long before sundown actually, Eiro and the others finally reached the town. Or rather, they could see it in the distance. For now, Eiro had to disguise himself a bit.

"Lugo, stay out here. The people here know you, so they'll know that I'm here as well." The Demon said with a bitter smile. He wished that they didn't have to do this, so that Eiro could go there again as well, but they couldn't disguise Lugo right now at all together with Eiro at the same time.

And the reason that Eiro had to be disguised through Bavet was simple: The people here knew the masked, hooded Eiro quite well. So if someone like that came there all of a sudden, they should be a bit suspicious that Eiro returned, considering what happened here at the Autumn Equinox.

Eiro took a deep breath as he detached the cart from Lugo and then removed his cloak as well so that he was just wearing normal clothes. With Bavet then fusing with Eiro, the Demon's appearance quickly changed. His wings became a thick winter jacket, his horns became hair, although just hazel brown one this time and not as colorful, and Eiro started to look like a normal person. Well, a normal person that was capable of pulling a cart with such a heavy load on it.

Eiro made sure to place a staff onto his back to show that he was a mage, while also creating a fake magic circle around the cart to make it look like Eiro cast a special spell to hold everything together.

Sure, he did cast a spell, but it was one that was much more simple than the one he faked it to be. He wanted it to become blatantly obvious that a spell was cast onto this.

At the same time, Eiro also created some fake magic circles around his limbs to make it seem as if he strengthened his own body to be able to pull this cart, although he obviously didn't need that.

And so, Eiro started to quickly pull the cart, while using water magic to fake-sweat as he approached the town gates.

The members of the militia that were standing there were clearly in shock at the scene they saw, considering that it seemed like an impossible feat, but Eiro was able to quickly talk his way out of this situation.

His charisma was pretty high, after all, so he was able to get out of it by saying that a few monsters attacked his caravan and he was only able to get rid of them when it was too late. His 'horses' and other people had died, and he had to make do while bringing this cart to the nearest town.

And so, Eiro entered the Town for the first time in months, pretending to be just some average, extraordinary travelling mage.

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