Demon's Virtue

Eiro walked into the gardens, quickly making his way to the stables. There, in his wonderfully cushioned bed and temperature-controlled private area with as much food and entertainment as he could possibly need, Lugo was sleeping.

The moment that he saw Eiro, he stood up, his antlers almost scratching the ceiling of the stables, "How are you, boy?" Eiro asked with a bright smile on his face.

Lugo replied with a loud bellow, nuzzling his snout into Eiro's neck.

"You alright? Being a lot more affectionate than normal," the demon replied, but Lugo just pulled back his head and stared deep into Eiro's face, "...You were concerned, huh? Yeah, I'm sorry that I've been leaving you alone this much. I've just been quite scared to take you along, you understand that, right? My growth has been... unique, to say the least.

You're not a fighter, you don't have any ways to protect you on your own. I don't want to see you get hurt."

Lugo huffed and turned his head away, and Eiro just laughed quietly, "Don't be like that, you know it's the truth. Every time I try to get you to train yourself up a bit, you vehemently refuse. And it's not like I can just keep on force-feeding you magic stones all the time."

A bit hesitant, the stag looked back at Eiro. Fact was that, while Lugo was able to grow stronger by eating magic stones, that wasn't an omnipotent ability. Different to Eiro, he wasn't able to absorb things without an end; he had to digest the magic stones like he would any other food, or rather, they seemed to take a lot of energy out of Lugo to absorb.

For a while, Lugo insisted on accompanying Eiro everywhere, and started refusing to eat anything beside magic stones so that he could catch up, but before long, he ended up collapsing and having massive bald spots all over his body due to malnutrition. Ever since then, Eiro refused to let him eat too much, and closely watched what Lugo was eating and how much exercise he was getting.

Though, that did slow down his growth a bit, Eiro didn't care. He didn't love this stupid deer because he was strong or powerful; he loved Lugo because he was family. He was Eiro's brother and his closest friend.

"I'm going to need your help for the time being, though," Eiro explained, and Lugo's ears perked up immediately, "Don't tell anyone, but... this evolution is really pretty rough on me. My magic and abilities are fine; rather, I can feel them growing stronger as time goes on, so I won't have any trouble defending myself.

But my body is practically falling apart, and I'm struggling a little to even move through the house without tearing my muscles."

Anxiously, Lugo took a step back, not wanting to hurt Eiro.

"It's not that bad, don't worry. I just need you to help me out since I don't want to take the risk flying for a while. That sound alright for you?"

Without a moment's hesitation, Lugo dropped down onto his belly, looking up at Eiro with an excited huff. The Demon ran his hand over the stag's head, smiling lightly, "Thank you very much, boy."

Eiro placed his index finger and thumb onto his lips and whistled, and it didn't take long until Bavet appeared in the form of a sparrow, quickly fusing into the Demon.

"Give me a bit of a warning beforehand, alright? What if I was doing something?"

"I know you weren't. If you could hear my whistle, I could sense exactly what you were doing."

"...show-off," Bavet replied as the Demon laughed inwardly.

Careful not to go too fast, Eiro climbed onto Lugo's back, before the stag stood up again. He seemed to realize just how dire Eiro's state was even without him going into too much detail. Eiro was incredibly appreciative of the support.

"Let's go out into town. And feel free to go at a comfortable pace for you, alright?"

Lugo nodded his head and stretched slightly. Eiro felt him breathe in and out a few times, before he carefully took a step forward. And then another, and then the next. It didn't take long until Lugo was sprinting through the road between the fields of the capital's outer circle. Like this, they would arrive in the inner circle in another minute or two.

"This is a comfortable pace for you now?" Eiro raised his brow, looking down at Lugo. But of course, he knew that wasn't the case; Lugo was breathing a bit too heavily for that to be the case. But since he wasn't overdoing himself yet, Eiro figured it was fine to let him do whatever he wanted.

Soon, they reached the gates of the inner circle and quickly made their way inside.

"So, what are we looking for now?" Bavet whispered into Eiro's ear, and the demon looked around.

"The masters running around town right now, obviously," the demon replied.

"...Do we have to? They'll come back to the manor in time."

"I want to see how they're doing. I promised Solomon that I'd keep them in line," Eiro pointed out, looking around the rooftops, "Gondos, you here?"

The golem quickly appeared next to Eiro, forming himself from pebbles and dirt, "Am I ever not?"

"I guess not," Eiro smiled, "Could you give me a hand?"

Without hesitation, Gondos nodded, and his literal hand split off his body, flowing into the Demon's face. They fused with Eiro's eyes, allowing him to have a clearer sight of the mana flowing all over the place. Along the rooftops were long strands of magic flowing like levitating rivers. Eiro stretched out his hand, pushing his own mana forward.

As if scooping up the strands of mana, he pulled them toward him. With a wave of his hand, Eiro gathered a ball of air with his magic and turned it into a temporary servant, linking it with the mana Eiro was seeing, "Go and follow."

The servant in the form of a small bird quickly flew off as it was told to. That was probably going to help Eiro find Meshi. Now he just had to find Kassandra, Orion, and Shimour. Eiro should probably give up on finding Shimour; he would keep an eye out while looking for Kassandra and Orion, but if he actively hid himself here in the city, then he probably had no hope.

It was one thing to find him in Eiro's own home. There, he knew the exact ways that every single ajar door changed the flow of air and mana; he could find Shimour in one way or another. But that wasn't the case here, there was far too much to keep track of for that kind of thing. Though, judging from Shimour's personality, he wouldn't cause any particular trouble anyway.

And so, he would have to focus on Kassandra and Orion; Kassandra, the Master of hand-to-hand combat in particular seemed like the kind that could cause trouble. However, in regard to finding those two, Eiro had a benefit.

He knew their footwork. They were Masters; it was practically impossible for them to not move in the perfect way unless they actively tried not to, but Eiro didn't see any reason why they would do that. There was nobody in this city that could be a threat to them beside each other, so they didn't have to be particularly careful of anything.

Their footsteps stood out amongst the crowd, especially to Eiro, who had spent a lot of time trying to learn their martial arts.

It was like trying to hear a specific droplet hit the ground after pouring a bucket of water on the ground, but Eiro's done crazier things. And so, it didn't take him long to single out the footsteps of Orion of Dagger Mastery.

"That way," Eiro said, carefully guiding Lugo through the roads of the capital. Orion was actually moving quite fast, and seemed to be making his way through some tight crowds without even slowing down, but Eiro didn't need to slow down either.

The rainbow-haired man riding on a massive stag with gemstone-antlers... there wasn't a person in the capital that didn't recognize him now. They all knew to step aside and let him through. That was certainly a benefit of being a noble, though Eiro didn't like drawing that card too often.

Either way, it helped him out in catching up to Orion very quickly.

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