Demon's Virtue

Chapter 705: Down the Ladder

After checking on everyone and making sure nobody in his party was injured, Eiro led them all down into the tower's basemnet rooms. There, hidden by some old boxes and crates with cobwebs practically as thick as a head of hair, was a trapdoor that seemed to be leading down into the mineshafts.

"What do you think this place was before the Devil took it over? It doesn't look like he built it himself," Jess wondered curiously, trying to peek into some of the crates to get any sort of hint. James slowly replied, seeing as nobody else was offering a reply, "It's kind of out in the middle of nowhere, so maybe some research thing?

I heard that a lot of mages that are trying to develop new spells move to desolate places like this. You know, in case something goes wrong..."

Eiro nodded his head, "That seems to be the case. Though it doesn't seem like it had been in use for quite some time before the Devil found it. There were a few rooms for botanical and alchemical research, and the top of the tower was mainly for researching new spells. Though, judging from the size, the amount of living quarters, and...

well, the chapel near the entrance, it housed a lot of individuals at once. This tower probably belonged to a small mage guild at one point in the past," Eiro explained, turning around toward the others as he lifted open the trapdoor, "The canyon provides the perfect testing ground for new and work-in-progress spells, or for properly analyzing the effects of existing spells.

And of course, if something does go wrong and the place blows up, then no civilians are dragged into it."

For a few seconds, Krog stared at Eiro while deep in thought, "If other mages come out to places like this to make new spells... why do you do it at the dinner table? The other day you were literally writing something into your grimoire while wiping a mess from Avalin's face..."

Eiro and Krog locked eyes for a few moments. Slowly, the demon looked down into the long vertical shaft leading down into the earth, "Sarius, could you light the space up a bit?"

"Hah?" The salamander asked, surprised, "Why'd you want me to do it? You can do it yourself, can't'cha?"

"Yeah, but I know that you haven't been keeping up with your practice properly while in the plane of fire. So just do it. Enough to give the others some light to see, but without burning any of us," the Demon said, as the salamander grumbled.

As Krog stared down at Jess with a confused expression after his question was ignored, Eiro started descending into the tunnel first to scout it out a bit more, as Sarius summoned some wisps of flames and made them float down into the darkness.

Sarius was going to focus the fire around Jess and Krog, since they were most in need of it. Eiro didn't need any light in the first place, and wouldn't be restrained all too much even if he went blind just like Jura did, and both Ariella and James only needed small amounts of light to be able to see at basically the same quality as if they were outside on a bright day.

That was a benefit that certain non-human races simply held over humans. Though, even most clans of elves didn't have this ability, as dark elves were the few clans that did possess low-light vision, a train that was inherited by James as a light elf.

Eiro looked up at Sarius' annoyed expression, and then glanced over at Gondos who was accompanying Eiro more closely. Gondos was open about his emotions, even if the way that he expressed them often made him seem as though he was emotionless in the first place, but Sarius would never openly admit it. The two of them were clearly extremely worried about Nelly.

And since Sarius in particular was the kind to get easily distracted, having him take over tasks like this while there was no battle going on didn't seem to be a bad idea. And Gondos as well was helping out, since feeling useful was the best way for him to cope with situations like this.

"The ladder isn't in great condition... can you stay here for now and create hand and footholds for them? I'll go ahead and take a look at everything," Eiro asked the Golem, who quickly nodded, "Of course."

Without hesitation, Gondos got started, and Eiro stopped flapping his wings for a moment, quickly descending downward. Before long, he slowed his descent, as Ariella was following behind as well.

The tunnel was slightly tight for her wings, since she didn't have the level of minuscule, pedantic control over her body as Eiro did, but she still managed to tuck them in a bit to slow herself down enough to safely descend without having to use that old ladder.

"Eiro," she whispered quietly. Since they were in enemy territory, she didn't want to be too loud. But Eiro shook his head, "Don't worry, there's nobody around. You can speak freely," the Demon explained, waving around some gusts of wind between his fingers that he carefully pushed toward Ariella, giving her the sign that he was using air magic to block their voices from traveling too far.

"Are you... alright?" Ariella asked with a concerned expression, as the two finally landed down at the bottom of the ladder. As he glanced around the mineshaft, Eiro nodded his head, "I'm fine. We just need to concentrate on this for now."

"But what about Merlin... and Nelly?"

"Well, Merlin's actions are actually giving us a tactical advantage. Merlin seems to have an ability to mess with senses, perception, and even other arcane artifacts. So he must have been able to trick the Devil well enough into believing that he was his pawn; I doubt he would really expect us to get down here this easily.

He was also clearly expecting you all to be taken out, otherwise he wouldn't have sent specifically-curated monsters after each of you," Eiro pointed out quickly, before slowing down a bit, "And... as for Nelly, I... her magic is destabilizing... her body isn't doing well, but she's a lot more stable in the plane of water. And I'm sure Nelly knows something about the Naiad Queen that we don't.

She should be fine soon."

Ariella looked at Eiro with a concerned expression. It was close to pitch-black down here, but the soft shimmers of light from Sarius' flames above were enough for her to see the Demon's pained expression. Things hadn't been going as he was expecting. Nelly was heavily injured and a man who Eiro thought he could consider family once before had become an enemy like none other.

And while Ariella wasn't there herself, the few things that Eiro had explained about Merlin already seemed incomprehensible. To Eiro, this all must seem incredibly frightening and nerve-racking. But even so, Eiro pushed on and was relentlessly aiming for the Devil's neck.

"I'm sure that everything-" Ariella started, slowly taking a step forward to try and embrace Eiro for a moment, but before she could, the Demon strongly pushed back against her. She hadn't even realized what was going on. It was only a few moments later that she realized she was bleeding from her neck. It was a shallow wound, and there wasn't even any particular pain.

It would heal up in no time, but the problem was that she had no idea what had done it. Confused, she tried to see Eiro. One of his arms was cut off nearly all the way, barely holding on by a few muscles.

Without hesitation, the Demon used one of his hands to hold his arm into place, fusing his own flesh back onto himself and using healing magic to take care of the rest, "What's happening?" Ariella asked, although she already knew what the answer to that was. The lights from above were getting closer, so there was more light for her to see with.

In the darkness of the mineshaft stood a figure clad completely in black feathers. Their body was thin, but their legs were thick and powerful.

"You evolved?" Eiro scoffed, looking at the figure in front of him. It was the crow monster that the Devil had raised. The one who held one of the pentacle cards, giving them 'Ultimate Agility', much like Eiro's 'Ultimate Perception'. They were faster; much, much faster than when Eiro had last seen them.

However, Eiro came prepared as well. Eiro entered a combat-ready stance. All over his body, a number of eyes popped open, duplicated from his real eyes, numbering a total of 13. This time, Eiro wouldn't let the crow escape alive.