Demon's Virtue

Chapter 386 - Prosthetic Skin

Eiro slowly placed the carefully carved pieces of wood down to the side. He held a small piece of it in his hand and held it to the side toward Bavet, "Try and transform it for a second."

The slime slowly tapped his core against the wood, and within a quick moment, the finger-sized piece of wood turned into metal. Of course it wasn't real metal, it just looked like it. It still only had the strength of the base wood, which really wasn't all that strong to begin with. And it would probably be hard to spot for others, but it was still possible to see that it was some form of wood, at the end of the day.

But luckily, it wasn't really turning back into its regular form. It was staying this sort of metallic thing, which was exactly what Eiro wanted to happen. That's why he made this wood in this way, instead of just having Bavet split off a part of his main body. After all, while it would hold out for a while, Bavet had to directly concentrate on it, and it wasn't possible to do it for much longer than half an hour yet. Bavet was practicing it, though.

Eiro pulled the piece back, and slowly held it in his hands. He pushed his mana into it, overwrititing Bavet's transformation of the wood with his own will and control over chaos and order. And just like that, the wood turned back into its original form.

"Perfect." The Demon smiled, and soon started to whistle a bit as he continued to finish the pieces for the arm up. Everything was slowly coming together, and Eiro looked over at Armodeus. It seemed like he was still in the middle of his work in creating the artificial artifact.

"How long will it take?" The Demon asked, and Armodeus thought for a bit. He slowly pulled away from the piece of metal in front of him that he was working on with some of his mana, making use of his artificer-abilities, "It'll have to keep forming for about a day now, but after that it should all be ready. I'm basically done with this, do you want me to quickly inscribe the inside of the parts?"

"Sounds good. Sorry, I would do it myself, but I didn't actually get around to getting the Artificing skill yet."

"Don't worry about it, lad. Even so, there's no way ye'd catch up to my skill any time soon." Armodeus pointed out with a smug grin on his face, "Just you wait, I'll get there someday."

"Hah, can't wait to see that happenin'!" The Elder Dwarf grinned broadly. Eiro smirked a bit as he handed the pieces of wood to the man next to him. With a light smile and a deep breath, Armodeus quickly carved certain runes into the inside of the pieces of wood that Eiro prepared.

And 'quickly' was not an exaggeration in this case, he truly managed to finish within a minute. That is what 'Ultimate Dexterity' made possible.

"Perfect, thank you." Eiro said quickly, and turned around toward Hannah, "Now, stretch out your left hand." The Demon said to her with a smile, and the undead girl slowly turned her head toward Ariella. The Nephilim simply nodded to encourage her, and Hannah nervously pushed her hand forward.

Carefully, Eiro grabbed that hand and slightly tugged on Hannah's fingers to straighten them out for a moment. The Demon looked at her, straight into her hollow eye sockets, "Don't worry, no need to be scared. I have a similar one myself."

Eiro pointed out, waving his wooden hand in front of the girl's face. Carefully, he started fixing the specific parts that he just carved in place, and proceeded to explain, "This is going to be a special prosthetic. One, it's going to help you blend in amongst people. Just the prosthetic would allow you to get past most people, as long as you still try to not stick out, that is. There are some that can see through it though. The kind of people you'd need to worry about in the first place."

"...And to trick the last bit, you need the artificial artifact?" Ariella asked. Eiro quickly replied with a nod.

"Exactly. The potency of artificial artifacts is horrendously lowered compared to the originals. And since Armodeus doesn't have much experience in this sort of thing, while he is the greatest craftsman alive, he wouldn't be able to make up for that lowered potency yet. That's going to take a while." Eiro explained, "For now, we're going to combine my ability to create these prosthetics with the artificial artifact. The upside of this is also that you might be able to feel a bit of touch here and there again."

Ariella stared down at Eiro confused, "Is that even possible? But..."

"Of course it would be. This is also a way where Hannah differs to normal undead. Regular ones are unable to sense anything, they just have the information conveyed to them through their creator's senses. As for Hannah, she can see and hear, even without any of the sensory organs to make it possible. By that logic, it should be possible to extend that ability of hers toward my prosthetics. This wood should be a fine conductor for her mana and abilities." The Demon explained to the two girls, as Eiro quickly finished fixing the prosthetic around Hannah's left arm, up to her elbow.

"Try moving your arm around a bit, alright?" Eiro asked her. Hannah slowly stretched out her hand and formed a fist. She curled her wrist a bit, and turned toward Ariella more than just excited. Without a moment's hesitation, she picked up the pen that Eiro prepared for her and started writing onto a piece of paper.

'I can move it just fine!' Hannah wrote in an excited manner, and Eiro simply smirked, "That's not even all. Now, for the next bit, I need you to empty out your mind. It's going to feel a bit uncomfortable, tingly... It might even hurt a bit. But I need you to promise me you won't push me out. Alright?"

Hannah was clearly quite confused, but she slowly nodded her head. So, Eiro wrapped his hand around hers, and tried to take control of her Life Force. Usually, this shouldn't be possible. But before, when he was obvserving Hannah's flow of magic after merging with Nelli for a moment, he realized that her soul hadn't lost its shape despite her obvious lack of flesh.

That Unique skill was a rather powerful one, it seemed, if it was strong enough to keep the shape of her very soul intact. However, since this was the case, it was also possible for Eiro to really give her these prosthetics. The Demon pulled the Life Force into the prosthetic wooden skin. Hannah really was squirming, but she held out quite well nonetheless. Soon, Eiro pulled his hands away.

"Now, try to move your hand again." The Demon suggested. Hannah did as told, and while her hand was incredibly shaky before, only being kept together through magic, it now moved nearly as it normally would. Of course a bit slower and more sluggishly, but nonetheless – It obviously worked.

Even more excited than before, Hannah jumped up from where she had taken a seat. She moved her two hands around, to see the difference made up by the prosthetic even more clearly. Immediately, Hannah hugged Ariella happily, before soon looking back at Eiro.

"Don't worry, don't worry, I'll start working with more right away. I-" Eiro started to say, although he quickly stopped, "I... Have to take care of something first."

Dropping everything, Eiro moved toward the door and opened it up. He ran through the basement's hallway and rushed toward the stairs. He had focused all of his attention onto Hannah's life force just now, to make sure that he didn't mess anything up, so he nearly missed this just now. He was lucky that he saw her approach.

"Now, what do you think you're doing here?" Eiro asked with a light glare, and the girl standing there soon locked eyes with the Demon, "Shouldn't you be asleep already? How did you get past your siblings that easily?"

"I'm not tired, Daddy!" Avalin exclaimed loudly, "I want to play with you!"

"Sorry, sweetie... I don't have time to play with you right now... We'll play tomorrow, alright?"

"You said that yesterday! I want to play now!" She yelled out loudly, and quickly grabbed onto Eiro's hand, dedicated to not let go of him anymore.

"Sorry...?" In the distance, Ariella seemingly heard exactly what Avalin said, "Eiro, do you have another daughter?"

The Nephilim approached with swift footsteps. She seemed to be more interested in Eiro's life now. Under any other circumstance, Eiro would have been happy, but since Avalin acts on whims hard for even Eiro to predict sometimes, this was a situation he didn't plan on even happening.

"Avalin, come on. I'll just bring you to bed now, and then we're-"

"No! I want to play with Daddy now!" She yelled loudly, throwing one of her tantrums. Eiro just planned on ignoring it and quickly rushing her upstairs anyway, but then he suddenly felt a jolt throughout his body as a white-golden spark jumped off his hand.

"What just-" Eiro muttered, and Avalin pulled her hand back, startled by the spark. Immediately, tears gathered in her eyes as she started to furiously bawl.

"Don't worry, don't worry, everything is fine, sweetheart. It's not like last time, it didn't even hurt." Eiro reassured her, and quickly pulled her into a hug. The Demon rubbed his hand over the back of her head and tried to calm her down. At this point, Ariella caught up to the Demon, and of course was able to see what was going on.

Smoke was rising off of Eiro's body wherever he touched Avalin, and the Demon and the Nephilim locked eyes for a moment.

"There's no way... Is that girl the..." Ariella asked, and Eiro simply glared at her. Slowly, he mouthed the sentence 'Do not say another word', trying to make her turn around and head back to the other room as if nothing happened. But of course, Ariella wouldn't just play along with this.

"I told you that I needed her help, and you just go and hide her from me? What the fuck is wrong with you?!" The Nephilim yelled out, and Eiro immediately glared at her, making the woman's body shiver all over.

Using wind magic, Eiro made sure that only Ariella would be able to hear his words now, to make sure there was no misunderstanding, "Don't swear around my daughter."