Demon's Virtue

Chapter 399 - Permission

Eiro quickly made his way out of the manor together with Koperia and the others, to make sure that the Queen of Undeath didn't wander around the building without him or anything like that. He was pretty sure that she tried casting some spells anyway, but the Demon managed to stop her from doing so for the most part. Whenever she tried, Eiro had been able to see through her immediately, after all.

"Well, I guess I'm going to stick around here for a little while. Do you know any interesting creatures that I could add to my collection?" Koperia asked curiously. Eiro thought for just a moment, "There are the corpses that I hid inside of the lake where we met a few hours ago if you want to play around with those a bit. But besides that, I guess most things are free game. Just don't try to kill random people in town. Oh, and there's a mountain near here, with a village of monsters set up inside of there. It's where the two Will'o'Wisps I made are, so you should be able to recognize the place immediately. Anyway, those guys are part of my own 'collection', if you so will, so please don't do anything to those guys either."

Koperia raised her brows curiously, "Would you mind if I go visit them for a moment at least? I keep growing more and more curious about your business in this area..." The woman said with a slight grin on her face. Eiro rolled his eyes, "Sure, but keep your distance. They're still monsters, and most of them are utter morons. So, they'll attack you if you come there, and I don't want you to wipe them out because they made you angry." Eiro sighed, but Koperia smirked.

"Don't worry, if I was able to get past your perception, then I'll get past theirs." Koperia pointed out, and Eiro was quickly reminded of something, "Speaking of... How did you do that? Do you just have such a great control over your aura?"

"Aura? Oh, yeah, I guess so. It's something you pick up if you live as long as I do, especially since my expertise is not regarded so kindly in most places of this world. And of course, Necromancy is not the only magic I know." Koperia said with a wink, and Eiro knew immediately that Koperia wouldn't tell him any more details regarding her abilities.

Koperia quickly snapped her finger, and out of black flames, a small creature appeared. It was mostly just a large eyeball with two bat wings at its side. It was floating around Eiro rather speedily.

"What's that supposed to be?" Eiro asked with a light frown, and Koperia quickly explained, "Homunculus, familiar, toy, call it whatever you want. The only thing you need to know is that through it, we can communicate. If you need my help, just hold it in your hand and say 'wake'. It's going to wake up, and its counterpart, if you want to call it that, will respond on my side. It works similarly for me. Just a quick method of communication, since I'll be off doing my own thing." Koperia explained. A moment later, the eye-bat folded up its wings, covering up the entirety of its body which was made up solely of that single huge eye. The whole thing was about the size of Eiro's fist, so it was relatively easy to hold it like this.

"Interesting. I'm guessing this sort of thing is hard to create." Eiro pointed out, and Koperia thought about it for just a moment, "It's not particularly hard... It's more like... a privilege that you receive once you've gained enough skill in magic. It's like a spell taken shape for a short time. Similar to spirits in concept, but incredibly different in execution. That's all I can bother to explain, anyway." The Queen of Undeath explained. Eiro knew that she was genuine saying that last bit, so he didn't even try to convince her to keep teaching him. He could try and analyze this eye-bat later anyway.

A moment later, Koperia turned around and once more snapped her finger. Black flames appeared again, just this time, they didn't summon this sort of eye-bat, but rather one of her undead. It was a giant bird, most likely a special sort of Roc bird. It was mostly skeletal, just that it had some sort of magic covering most of its form, so it didn't directly appear skeletal for most. Koperia climbed onto the undead Roc bird without a moment's hesitation, and then looked at Eiro with a smile on her face, "Once you got your plans in order, let me know, and we can go take care of 'the Death' together."

"Will do." Eiro replied bluntly, and the Queen of Undeath disappeared just a moment later on the back of her undead roc. And then, he turned around and looked at the three people standing there. Armodeus was already on his way back into the building, a bit annoyed that Koperia didn't even bother to say goodbye to him, while Ariella and Hannah were simply standing there rather nervous.

"Eiro, who exactly was that?" The Nephilim inquired immediately. If Hannah had flesh, Ariella's fingernails would be digging into it as the Nephilim stood behind the undead girl.

Eiro looked back at her, "Oh, I thought you would have picked that up through context... That was Koperia, the Queen of Undeath. She's an acquaintance of Armodeus and my late Master, and I needed her help with something." The Demon explained. Ariella let out a deep sigh as she locked eyes with him.

"The fact that you are saying this so casually is not even nearly as disturbing as the fact that I'm not even surprised anymore..." Ariella groaned. Her frustration, nervosity, and shock soon faded when she realized something.

"Wait... The Queen of Undeath, Eliza Koperia? The woman that's known for being utterly insane, with no regard for the life of anyone or anything?" Ariella asked with a wry smile, "And you let her meet Hannah?"

"..." Eiro looked back at the two, "I can tell that you're getting angry, but there's really no need to. I can see through any lies, and she promised she wouldn't do anything crazy like mess with you. And I didn't notice any lies."

"Didn't you just talk about the fact that she managed to get past your perception as well? What if she used some sort of trick?" Ariella asked, and Eiro looked back at her, a bit in thought, "You have a point. Then how about this... Koperia was a close friend to my master, a man who indiscriminately tried to heal any living creature he met, and if they had the need, would make custom prosthetics on the spot. And she is also a close friend to Armodeus, who you should already know is a huge scaredy-cat. If she was as scary as those rumors, those two would never have become so close." Eiro explained to Ariella. Somehow, it seemed like that helped her accept Eiro's words a bit more easily.

"If you say so..." Ariella muttered. With a smile, Eiro walked up to the two women in front of him, before he squatted down in front of Hannah. He looked into the girl's fake eyes, and looked at her fake face. Her fake hands were grabbing onto the Nephilim behind her, rather nervous.

"Now, Hannah... What would you think about becoming a royal with me?"

---

Eiro walked through the royal castle with a smile on his face. He was being escorted by the royal knights, because of course he was, and soon ended up in front of Solomon's study. And to Eiro's pleasant surprise, it seemed like there was another visitor here at the moment. While that visitor's guards were first trying to hold Eiro off from heading inside, once they realized who it was that was trying to get into this room, they took a quick step to the side to allow him in.

The Demon couldn't help himself but smirk as he knocked on the door, "Solomon, I'm coming in." Eiro said with a smile. On the other side of the door, the King let out a slight sigh and nodded his head. Meanwhile, his cousin, Marcus Melachine, the duke, was wondering why he didn't reply properly. But of course, Eiro didn't need to hear the King's words to know that he was being let in. Not that Eiro cared too much. Even if Solomon had told him to stay out, he would have just come in. There were only three individuals in there, after all. Duke Melachine, Solomon, and Lognir. He probably couldn't interrupt anything important that he couldn't know about anyway.

Eiro swiftly pushed open the door and took a step inside. There, he simply smiled at Duke Melachine and lightly waved at him. The Duke immediately jumped up once he saw this man, and then locked eyes with him, "What? What are you doing here? I thought our business regarding Richard was over already..."

"Hm?" Eiro asked, "What are you talking about? I'm not here for you. I'm off-duty already." The Demon sighed deeply.

"Then why are you here, Eiro?" Solomon asked with a light smile on his face, although he clearly wanted to continue his situation with his cousin. Eiro turned his head toward Lognir and smirked. The Dragon snapped his finger while rolling his eyes, "Don't abuse my abilities too much, child."

"Hey, I'm trying to preserve my own abilities here a bit more, you know?" Eiro smirked, "Anyway, just wanted to let you know, Solomon. I managed to meet up with Koperia. She's a friend of my late master, yadda yadda, that part's not important. What is important is that she's going to help me out with a few things to help me become stronger. Don't worry, she won't mess with anyone around here, she promised me. You might find a few more undead monsters around the vicinity of the town for a while, but don't worry about that." Eiro explained, and Solomon raised his brows surprised.

"Oh, what a coincidence. That's what Marcus and I were just speaking of." The King pointed out, and Eiro nodded his head immediately, "I know, that's why I said it first. Anyway, now that you're caught up with that, I need to ask you for two things. One, make sure that Charles doesn't slack off as much when it comes to infusing his sapling. Two, I need official free access to the deep part of the prison, Koperia and I will take care of 'that' soon. It would be easier if we don't have to break in there for that." Eiro pointed out quickly. Solomon locked eyes with Eiro for a moment, while Duke Melachine was kind of overwhelmed with all of this sudden information.

Solomon let out a deep sigh, "I keep telling Charles to do it, but the kid just won't listen. He's like a different person now, but we have the same issues. Back then he wouldn't listen because he was rebellious, and now because he's too excited about things to just sit there for a couple of hours at a time."

Duke Melachine turned his head toward his cousin and stared at him, "You're seriously focusing on that part of it, Solomon?"