Demon's Virtue

Chapter 249 - Copied Collector

Eiro held the button in his hand and started to grind his teeth together. He was annoyed. He was frustrated. He was angry.

"Eiro, calm down! Calm down, everything's alright!" Nelli told the Demon, trying to reassure him and calm him down before he drifted off into being influenced by his mark of wrath again.

The demon stood there and took a deep breath that he cooled down heavily with the help of magic to physically cool himself to help him do so mentally as well, "Now that I've told you all this information, do with it what you will. If you've got any sort of clue, let me know immediately, and we'll investigate it." Eiro said, closing his eyes as he handed Bahlsen the button back.

The Demon slowly turned around and walked out the door just to take a bit of a breather while trying to think about what just happened himself. In his mind, to distract himself, Eiro chose to run through what just happened over and over again to see it from every angle possible for him.

How was the collector able to trick Eiro's senses like that, how was he able to literally predict what Eiro would have done? He tried see every detail about him that he could, and in the end, he realized something else important.

"Bahlsen. Did you ever actually... see him at all?" Eiro asked, and the man from inside the room slowly stepped toward the door, "Never actually. It makes me wonder if this was meant as a way to mock us, know that he knows we are collaborating in this current investigation."

"Not the point. Do you want to see him?" The Demon inquired, and Bahlsen immediately nodded the head, "Of course I do! It would make it possible to narrow down the suspects incredibly!"

"You have suspects?"

"Not specific ones, but the list of all possible ones will be narrowed down."

"Of course..." Eiro sighed. He stepped into the room and looked at one specific piece of furniture. Eiro pushed his hand into a pouch, pulled out some more coins to hand them to Bahlsen, and then destroyed that table without hesitation just for the table-leg.

"...What are you doing?" Bahlsen asked with a frown, and Eiro turned toward him, "Did you not listen at all? I'll let you see him."

"I see, so you want to carve a wooden figure of him. That might truly help."

"Well, not exactly... I just sent someone off to grab something for us to help us with everything." the Demon said bluntly, "He should be back when I'm done with this figurine."

Since Bahlsen already saw the Three of Swords, Eiro just took out his toolbox and quickly combined the blades with the specific tools, and then started to quickly carve into the small piece of wood in front of him.

Eiro wanted to replicate the Collector as much as he could. He recreated everything in the exact way that Eiro remembered it, and the moment that he was done, Eiro stood up and placed the wooden figurine to the side onto one of the chairs.

The Demon walked over toward the window and quickly opened it up before taking a step to the side. Bahlsen seemed a little confused, before a large bird just shot right into the room through the window, hitting its wings on the windowframe while it was at it. The wings were obviously broken, and Eiro sighed loudly as he looked at the large eagle-like creature.

"You're a dumbass. Here." Eiro grumbled. He picked up the wooden figurine and gave it to Bavet. The slime slowly transformed into its normal form and quickly enveloped the wooden figure, "Shut it." He replied.

After a little bit of waiting, Bavet started to transform. His translucent slime body turned flesh-like and then became the shape of a rough humanoid figure. Eiro just stood there and waited for a good while as Bavet properly formed his body into the right shape.

Soon, after the humanoid base was done, he added things like the clothes, although Eiro immediately tried to help him adjust the color and the details a little bit since things like that were hard to see on just a plain colored wooden figurine.

And then with the rest, like for example the face, Eiro quickly helped out as well, as if he was molding Bavet's face to be exactly like that of the Collector. He instructed the Slime on how to change certain parts and on how to proeprly color a few other things, and then even added things like posture and expression.

And in the end, Eiro figured that it was done. Physically, Bavet now looked perfectly like the Collector did, or at least how Eiro remembered the Collector. Somehow, it was hard to focus on him, but the demon figured that at the very least his perfect memories wouldn't end up fooling him.

Eiro slowly turned around toward Bahlsen and crossed his arms, "This is what he looked like. We can't really replicate his voice, because it was obviously changed somehow. Although I actually don't know how exactly it was changed." The Demon explained, "Sorry."

"Don't worry..." Bahlsen muttered as he slowly approached Bavet with a slight frown on his face, "So this is what he looked like? I was kind of hoping that he would look a little more... a little..."

"More crazy?"

"That's one way to put it, yes." Bahlsen immediately replied to Eiro, and the Demon just waited for the Investigator to finish taking a good look at Bavet's current form, "First of all, I'm not even going to ask how you managed to get your hands on a tamed shapeless slime..."

Quickly interrupting Bahlsen before he could say anything more than that, Bavet stared at the investigator, "Fuck off, I ain't tamed, bitch. I'm wild as shit." Bavet said with a grin on his face, but in the end, he just saw Eiro standing right behind Bahlsen and soon stopped as he turned his head to the side, "S-Sorry..."

"You better be." Eiro sighed, "But you heard him, he's not really tamed. I think he might be too dumb to be tamed, if I have to be perfectly honest. Anyway, continue."

Bahlsen slowly turned back toward the pale face that Bavet wore right now and continued to think, "I can definitely see what you mean with him being inhuman. You know... This kind of looks like he might be some kind of Undead. I was already wondering that, as plenty of Undead have the ability to create others of their kind. Zombies, Vampires, and things like that. Of course, it's always a bit different depending on the exact type of undead, but it would make sense. The creatures that the Collector makes are Undead as well, after all. Hm, maybe he could be some kind of Lich-level creature?"

"...Say what now?" Eiro asked with a deep frown on his face. Undead? Wasn't that... a bit too big of a coincidence? There was no way that it was just that. One day, he finds out that the literal king of undead creatures, <The Death> is currently trapped here in this town, and the next day, the Collector is supposed to be some kind of Undead as well? What was this bullshit?

Eiro rubbed the bridge of his nose in thought as he looked down at the ground. This was too much of a coincidence at this point. With a loud groan, Eiro just stared up at the ceiling, "Fuck this. Why can't things just be simple anymore? Why couldn't this just be something where I had to kill some fucking random pitiable weak killer? Instead, I have to deal with someone that's obviously related to a Royal?"

The Demon muttered loudly, loud enough that Bahlsen was able to hear him. But of course, Eiro didn't have the intention of hiding this anyway. Telling Bahlsen about this was the best course of action, considering that he would be able to piece things together much more easily than Eiro would, probably.

And so, that's what Eiro did. Of course, he didn't tell Bahlsen the whole story. He didn't tell him where <The Death> was, or what form he took. All that he did was tell him that the King of the undead was currently here in this area, and that he thought that he was the reason why the Collector came here right now.

"I see... That would certainly make sense... But... are you positive that <The Death> is truly here? That sounds even more troubling than just the Collector, if I have to be completely honest with you. After all, the collector kills in controlled ways, and in small amounts compared to what something like <The Death> could do. He was always said to be rather aggressive, after all." Bahlsen pointed out quickly, and Eiro just nodded his head. He completely agreed, but that wasn't the point Eiro was trying to get at.

He didn't want to shift their attention from the collector over to <The Death>, but rather keep it on both of them, since it was obvious that they were somehow related to each other.

"I can't exactly say how long it has been, but I think it's only been a few months. Not longer than a year, that's for sure."

"Hmm... Then it has been quite a long time already. Maybe the collector only now found out where exactly <The Death> was?" Bahlsen suggested, and Eiro slowly crossed his arms in thought, "Maybe so, yes. But let's hope that the collector and the death are somehow mortal enemies, and that they'll try to kill each other the moment they may encounter each other. If we're lucky, the collector is just strong enough to maybe weaken <The Death> a bit, and then we could more easily get rid of him." Eiro grumbled quietly.

He was slightly annoyed at this situation. It was something he didn't expect he would have to deal with, and it wasn't something that he particularly wanted to deal with all of a sudden. But at the very least, Erio would still have the same kind of benefit as if he was fighting <The Death> considering that he had access to a pretty special sort of material that he could make use of. One that would be able to rather easily kill undead.

But even then, Eiro would need to be able to even hit the Collector, which he didn't manage to do even in such a small, narrow space as this Inn room.

Eiro sighed deeply and looked at Bahlsen with his arms crossed, "Either way, this is more than you've figured out about him in a while now, huh?"

And without hesitation, Bahlsen nodded his head, "That is for sure.. I am glad that I was able to meet you, Eiro."