Demon's Virtue

Once Jess and James switched their earrings back again, Eiro smiled and made the stopwatch turn back into a card, before quickly placing it back into his treasury, "The effect is pretty straightforward, at least. I'm sure I can figure out a few interesting uses for it, though."

"You sure? Wouldn't that be dangerous? It's going to make you age a lot more, right?" Ariella asked with a worried expression, and Eiro placed his hand onto hers and replied with a soft smile.

"Don't worry, I don't think that's really anything I need to worry about anymore. My body works vastly different to how it used to to begin with now that I've started altering it actively, removing my heart, for example. And I'm quite sure that, as an Arcanus, my lifespan isn't even comparable to what it used to be.

Not even mentioning that the Demon King now has some influence over me now that I'm a Lord, so that should extend my lifespan a few dozen times over at the very least," Eiro explained, "I'm not going anywhere, don't worry."

Ariella smiled lightly, squeezing Eiro's hand. Meanwhile, Krog let out a slight scoff, "You seem pretty relaxed over the fact that you've basically become a servant to some random demon."

"Hm?" Eiro looked at the warrior, raising a brow, "I mean, in the first place, becoming a lord wouldn't have meant I'm a servant or anything. The relationship that Demon Lords have to the King is known to be similar to the relationship between Royals and the Monster King. But since the Demon King isn't really a thing, that doesn't matter."

The group stared at Eiro confused, "...what do you mean by that?" Jess asked with a frown, and Eiro slowly looked to the side, toward the horizon. He felt the energies of this netherworld flowing naturally. If it had anything against this, then Eiro was sure hell would intervene.

But it seemed as though the Lords actually had almost unlimited freedom in relation to what they did within or in regard to hell.

"Basically... the Demon King is Hell itself. Or maybe, the other way around is more accurate? I don't know anything for certain of course, but... when that assistant, or servant or whatever, to the Greatest God, betrayed the gods and was cast from the heavens, his fall created hell around them in the space between the planes.

But that's probably not right, it's not that hell formed around that being, but rather... that the being that had now become the first Demon, neither dead nor alive, or maybe both at once, was floating through that empty space between the planes, growing like a cancer in the body of this world. And that's what hell is."

The group stayed silent listening to that revelation. They shifted around nervously around their seats, glancing around even though they were trying to hide their discomfort, but Eiro calmed them down, "You guys have nothing to worry about. Hell is actually quite a nice being, from what I can tell.

Once the people of the other planes found out about this place, about the demons that were born from it, they were of course worried and scared, and since there were Demon 'Lords' popping up, they knew that there must be a King as well. Of course, that King has always been Hell itself. But if they knew that the king of the demons was this realm in its entirety? Well, Hell spared them from that.

And so, it invented the Demon King. A being that was just lazily sitting on their throne, uncaring and apathetic toward everything and anything."

"But... you left to meet the Demon King, right?" Ariella asked with concern on her face. Eiro nodded.

"Right. I mean, I did meet Hell. In the same way that I met the whole World before. They're sort of similar beings, in some way. But well, Hell cared a lot less about letting me understand the scope of its existence, so it was an... interesting experience.

I don't know how I can properly describe it, but, and I know this might sound kind of cocky, I think hell took a liking to me," Eiro explained with a slight grin, as he started to play around with the ornate fountain pen in his hand. The others were still trying to really take all this information in, so Eiro's curiosity took over for a few moments.

He let his magic flow into the pen, and could see a pale blue, almost white, ink appear at the pen's tip. Eiro reached down and pressed his palm onto the ground, and quickly pulled it back up as another root, from the same trees that the chairs everyone was seated on were formed from, reached out from the ground. Eiro pinched it at the base, pulling a wooden spear off the ground.

After removing the dirt from its surface, Eiro quickly placed the pen onto it and started to write. He wasn't just writing words though; he was writing those runic patterns that he had learned from Partax. The formula he was writing onto the wooden spear was quite simple. It was just something that would let Eiro play around with it a little.

He finished before long, pulling the wooden spear with its pale blue writing rues back behind his head, before pushing his arm forward and throwing the spear into the distance. Though, it was really just a toss, for the most part. He didn't put any particular strength into it.

But even so, the spear was practically pulling in the air around it and pushing itself forward, actually speeding up as time went on, travelling in a near-perfect straight line until the magic in the artificed engravings ran out.

"That... seems a little anticlimactic for one of the cards," James pointed out, seemingly happy to have something else to change the topic toward. Something that wasn't giving them existential dread at the knowledge of what hell really was.

Eiro scoffed and shook his head, "No, no, this is just the beginning. The pen is a pretty versatile tool, actually. For me, it has a couple main uses. One, affecting the system. It's rare, but there are ways to figure out someone's class and race and such, and now I can disguise my status to be like a person's."

"Hm, I see, that does seem useful in a... 'covering all the bases' sort of way," Jess pointed out, and Eiro quickly nodded his head.

"Mhm. For a similar reasonn, I'm going to make use of its ability to write stories. Mostly, it's going to be for the benefit of the monster town. Writing signs and stories to disguise the fact that there is a town there until it's really time to reveal it to the world.

And of course, writing stories about wandering monster traders that appear with nothing but kindness in their hearts, to support the trade efforts a bit more."

"Does that mean you're going to create... fake monster traders to make it seem more common?" Jess wondered.

"Not directly, no. Though that's also not a bad idea. I'm sure I can simply figure out a way to make the sudden appearance of monster traders seem a bit more... natural. And of course, the pen is also pretty good to spread rumours around.

If I write up a story about them in a way that practically makes the reader talk about it, it should be easy enough to spread it to everyone that really needs to know."

"...Is that why you've been working on publishing novels recently? In preparation for that?"

Eiro smiled, "Well, that was also a bit of a hobby thing, to be totally honest with you. But yes, also that. But anyway, the last main use for the pen that I see is in its use for artificing. The specific way that the ink the pen creates works makes it a perfect conductor for this sort of enchanting, and due to the influence of the artifact, it makes it a bit more solidly defined, in some ways?

Not to mention that the pen can actually effect other artifacts in ways that nothing else can. Like how that special space was created on the Dungeon Map to trap me. And with that..." Eiro looked at the key that he was holding in his hand, "...with that, I should be able to strengthen the power of the key enough to take the 'Arcane Splinters' from others."

"So you're finally gonna become the hero, huh?" James scoffed, and Eiro smiled lightly, shaking his head, "No, sadly not yet. Since the splinter needs to really 'mature' first, they only come to be once an individual can get their first class. At that point, I can take the 'Hero Splinter. And also, I'll be taking the 'Holy Priestess Splinter' from Avalin."

"It's still a while until then, but at least she won't have to live with that ability forever, huh? Honestly, that amount of holy energy just... is so, so dangerous. Not to mention that she won't be able to live a normal life with that splinter."

"Right. I mean, we'll see how things turn out. It's still 7 years until then, so if she shows that she wants to keep the aspect, then I guess I really won't have a reason to go against that. But, until then, I'll have to test this all out anyway," Eiro pointed out, "Once we're out of here, I guess I'll go search for some others with Arcane Splinters."