Demon's Virtue

Chapter 492 - Fake Parents

"I apologize, but there is no 'Arc Gilhart' here." The Demon said bluntly, "There is only my son, Arc Daemonherz."

The man in front of him, Aaron Gilhart, glared at Eiro as he heard his words, "Do not act a fool! You know exactly that it is indeed my son! I have seen the illustrations of that silly event at the Academy at the beginning of the year. That boy is my son, indubitably!"

"And in response to our dear friend's claim, we investigated a bit." The other man, with hazel brown hair, pointed out, "You are a young, never-married man with six children, of which four are the exact same age, while clearly none of them are even slightly related." He said with a deep glare, before placing his hand onto his chest, "Let me introduce myself, my name is Loid Garian Kiliar, Samantha's father. You can say all you wish, but it is obvious that our children have been entrapped by you. If you hand them over to us now, there will be no consequences. Understood?"

Eiro stared back at the two men in front of him, when the blonde woman, Aaron's wife, started running past the Demon toward the manor. Eiro turned his head, seeing that Arc was peeking at what was going on from a corner of the building. The woman seemed to have seen him before he had realized who it was. It has been eight years since he saw her, after all.

"Elizabeth, where are you going?" Aaron asked confused, as the woman quickly exclaimed why she started moving, "I can see my boy!" She explained, and Eiro rolled his eyes as he kicked his foot into the ground. Within an instant, a wall of rock appeared in front of Elizabeth, which she promptly ran into.

"Oops, I guess I formed it a bit too close to you..." Eiro said loudly with fake sympathy, as one of Elizabeth's servants quickly ran over to her to help her up.

"You! What did you do?!" Aaron angrily asked, before Eiro rolled his eyes. He snapped his fingers, causing Nelli, Gondos and Sarius to appear, "I'm a mage, you fool. But more importantly, I should be the only one asking the questions. What do you 'think' you're doing? Without even a prior message, you come to visit my manor and accuse me of kidnapping your children? You are not citizens of Skyhart, so do you realize that such actions could clearly cause conflict between our countries?"

"Hah, as if anyone in this country would care about a mere Baron being accused of a crime he actually did commit." Aaron sighed as he shook his head, and Eiro stared back as his jaw practically dropped, "That... that is a joke, right? You realize I've only been a baron for about... a month, right? I became a baron because I'm a special asset to the Kingdom. King Solomon is practically my closest friend, he personally recommended me for the 'Hero's Companion Tournament' this summer, and I have potential to be given a higher noble rank just through the raw worth I have for the kingdom." The Demon explained in a blunt tone, before Aaron stared back at him. He turned his head toward Loid, who slowly nodded.

"That is indeed the truth, something that I believe I informed you of, Aaron. But that matters not in the face of the fact that our children are being kept captive here against their will." Loid pointed out, locking eyes with Eiro.

The Demon was barely able to hold back his anger, a feeling that was clearly shared by Nelli and Sarius, and even the calm-hearted Gondos was furious at this insult. Bavet was only able to contain himself because he had trained himself to be able to help Eiro out when he was feeling angry. Luckily he didn't need to take care of Eiro right now, so he could concentrate on himself.

"Against our will? Seriously?" A voice said, coming over from behind the rock wall that Eiro had created just earlier. Aaron and Elizabeth looked at the young man with broad smiles, "Arc! My son! Oh, how much you've grown..!" Aaron exclaimed, as Arc slowly stepped up to stand next to Eiro.

"You're not my father." He said, locking eyes with the man in front of him, "You're nothing but a sperm donor. And she's nothing but an egg donor. Neither of you have done anything, in the eight years I have lived with you, that would make me want to call either of you a parent. Meanwhile, Eiro... my actual father, has done everything and anything in his power to protect us. He gave us a future, an education. He gave us the choice of what we wanted to do with our lives. And he loved us more than either of you would be ever capable of." Arc said bluntly, saying his opinion rather clearly.

Arc was a mature and intelligent young man, he knew exactly what he wanted, and he wasn't swayed by any sort of emotions that he might have for these 'fake' parents of his. At least, that's what he was showing outwardly. Arc was trying to act as rationally as possible, but Eiro knew... Arc was feeling some form of happiness seeing them again.

Of course, the only reason that was the case was because it was the only possible emotion he could feel. All the anger, sadness, and fear that might accompany their arrival had been suppressed. Arc had never really felt any negative emotions around these guys until the end, simply because he wasn't capable. He quite literally only had positive memories, and least on the emotional side of things. Arc had incredible memory, something that seemed to come through his reincarnation into this current world, so he was able to remember most of his childhood that he had spent around these people. He knew that they were never good parents, he knew that as a fact. But when he saw them, the only emotions that were able to bubble up were those of the happy, nostalgic feelings that he had once felt for them. Even a horrible parent would end up having a few good moments here and there.

These were the only things rushing through Eiro's mind, seeing his adoptive son and that son's father together in front of each other right here. And while Eiro was still trying to process everything, since this situation was quite emotionally demanding for the Demon as well, practically stunning him, Aaron walked forward with an anger-filled face.

"How dare you speak to your parents that way, Arc? Do you not know how much we worried for you since you disappeared that day?!" He asked with a furious tone of voice. He was clearly thinking about slapping Arc as well, but his hand still seemed to hurt from when he did so to Eiro. Instead, he tried to grab Arc's collar, but before he was able to even lay a hand on him, Arc grabbed Aaron's arm and with some swift motions that he learned from Eiro, threw Aaron to the ground.

The personal guards that had accompanied him immediately got ready to unsheathe their weapons, but they were quickly stopped by Loid, "You do realize that this man is an Earl, do you not?"

"Oh so fucking what, do you think I really care?" Arc replied, clearly annoyed as his emotions were starting to bubble up again, "You want me to fuck you up as well or something?"

Loid, his wife, as well as Arc's 'fake' parents all looked back at him and Eiro in shock, "What did you do to my boy?! You turned him into some kind of savage!" Elizabeth exclaimed, before Eiro let out a deep sigh of annoyance. He placed his hand on Arc's shoulder and quickly locked eyes with him, "Please, be careful. We don't want 'it' to level up again." He said, and Arc grumbled quietly to himself as he took a deep breath. He basically meditated for an instant right here, trying to calm himself down to not let the emotions affect him, to try and avoid his unique skill's level rising.

And then, Eiro took over instead. He walked a few steps forward. In front of his hand, he started gathering a lot of flame, compressing it down into a single point. All that plasma came together, radiating heat that was clearly affecting the people around him. They were starting to feel uncomfortable by the heat that Eiro was letting off. Slowly, Eiro raised his hand into the sky, and started letting the tiny, marble-sized orb of flame float up above them. It sped up more and more, until it reached the sky. Or rather, more specifically, the large, fluffy white cloud right above them right now.

While these people in front of Eiro were unsure what exactly was going on, Eiro simply held his hand in front of himself, and snapped a single time.

A moment later, a deafening sound could be heard, as if the sky itself shattered into pieces. And as they looked up, what these nobles, that simply came here and insulted Eiro, saw was practically a second sun. An explosion of flame, that simply erased most of the huge cloud floating above them, pushing all the others in sight away in ripples.

And a few moments later, what hit them was a violent shower of rain, since that cloud's water was released unto the ground beneath it. Of course, Eiro protected himself and Arc, and had sent Nelli off to stop the water from hitting the others or the flower bed they had just created together.

But all the others right in front of Eiro had become soaked in rainwater that nobody would have expected on such a day. This was an event that Eiro had created with ease. He didn't even need to cast a proper spell, he did it just with his control over flames.

With a gentle smile, trying to hide his absolute fury, Eiro tilted his head to the side, "It seems the weather has gone a bit sour. How about we move this discussion inside instead?"