Demon's Virtue

Eiro looked at the people stood in front of him. They were the masters that Eiro had invited back here, hoping that they would train him in preparation for the battle with the devil. But of course, that plan had changed pretty quickly the moment Eiro figured out that the Devil was planning something massive.

Of course, at the time, he wasn't able to fully see through what it was the Devil was planning exactly, but he did know that it would have been something at a massive, destructive scale. If he wanted to, the Devil could have probably plunged this place into a great war that spread throughout the whole continent, or maybe even beyond it.

"I'm really sorry for asking you to come here and then just leaving before you could arrive," Eiro said, trying to be as genuine as he possibly could be. That being the case, he didn't feel like it was much of a waste. He could still use their training even now. Rather, it was probably the best time to receive their training, as Eiro was planning on initiating his evolution soon.

The physical reconstruction that was certain to happen during that time would certainly benefit from the support of Masters like the ones stood in front of him.

"Well, whatever," Meshi, the Freerunning Master, replied, "Not like the Devil was the reason we agreed to come here anyway."

"We promised your former owner that we would-" the woman stood next to Meshi, the Master of Hand-to-Hand combat Kassandra, started speaking, but Eiro stared at her with a deep intensity. He knew that he wouldn't be able to hurt her, and a Master wouldn't be easy to intimidate, but it simply happened instinctively.

A pulse of mana flowed out of every pore in Eiro's body, filling the room like a dense, suffocating fog.

"What did you just say?" Eiro asked, both of his voices involuntarily leaking out from behind his fletched teeth, "Jura was my father. I wasn't his pet if that's what you're saying."

"Heh, so that's what you think?" Kassandra scoffed, crossing her arms as she rolled her eyes. She seemed to be amongst the younger ones in the group of Masters, though her being an elf probably made her the oldest. Acting like a child despite that didn't particularly help Eiro's anger.

"Kassandra," Armodeus stood up from his seat, stepping up between Eiro and the elf, "That's enough. I know you're not particularly fond of Monsters, but Jura thought of Eiro as his son. We all know that."

Kassandra looked at the dwarf stood in front of her. With a sigh, Kassandra approached the couch and took a seat, seemingly not wanting to engage in the conversation any further. Armodeus quickly turned around toward Eiro, locking eyes with him.

"She was just trying to get a rise out of you. Are you... okay? You're not affected by wrath again somehow, right?"

Eiro pulled in his mana and shook his head, "Not that I know of, no. But who knows, really. I did just become an official Demon Lord."

"You what, now?" the last of the group of Masters, Orion of Dagger Mastery, let out almost involuntarily. He seemed pretty collected until Eiro just said that. Despite his graying hair, Orion's voice was actually quite youthful.

"That... is news to me as well," Shimour pointed out with a raised brow, "How'd you manage that?"

Eiro closed his eyes briefly, still calming himself down a bit, "Well, after I got my Legendary Skill, I had a Legendary Evolution. And that somehow caused me to become the first of a wholly new species of Demon.

Oh, and by the way, since I'm originally an artificial demon created by the monster king, I'm not officially part of the demon king's lineage, so the repercussion of the original sin doesn't affect me. Meaning that Holy Energy does nothing to me anymore. Rather, I get healed by it like anyone else now."

The room was silent for a few moments, until Bavet burst out into laughter, "Oh gods, that's the best sound I could ever have heard. A bunch of Masters stunned by our dear little Eiro."

"Don't call me that," Eiro said with a glare, but Bavet just shrugged.

"You know you don't scare me anymore."

"Well, we can change that. I have all of the Devil's knowledge of demonology now, so if you're up for it, I would need a test subject."

"...I retract my former statement. Go on," Bavet replied, as the slime in the form of a white cat quickly lowered his head again. Eiro rolled his eyes and looked back at the Masters.

"I'll just... fill you all in for now, alright?"

---

The Masters were seated on the couches, silent. Eiro had really told them everything just now. Well, nearly everything, there were a few things that he had to let out because they were important enough to be discussed on their own.

"...So, you can evolve again now? You're going to become even more... powerful?" Orion asked, and Eiro slowly nodded his head.

"That's what it looks like, yes," the Demon explained, "I've been focusing heavily on skill proficiency and technique improvement for this past evolution, so I haven't actually assigned any of the statpoints that I've gotten. Right now I have about... 800 left to use, including the bonus points from the evolution itself. So with that, and the evolution, I should become massively stronger."

"Wait... You... you haven't used those? None of them? You've got the opportunity to assign them yourself already, so use it, ya maniac! Especially before fighting the literal Devil!" Armodeus exclaimed, looking at Eiro with an angry frown.

Eiro looked back with a slight smile.

"Don't worry, it was a tactical decision," he explained, trying to calm the Elder Dwarf down, "I was luckily able to trick him into that 'deal', so I managed to avoid a direct encounter. But if it had gotten to a point where I had to fight him, I had to use everything I could. Him underestimating me being one of the advantages."

"I see," Partax muttered slightly, rubbing his goatee with a nod, "With the insight that the Devil has, in an actual battle, he would be able to figure out your abilities quite well. But since he would have no way of knowing that you can assign your stats freely, suddenly growing massively stronger or faster in the middle of a battle would be a moment that could turn the tides of a fight."

Armodeus slowly leaned back into his seat, having managed to relax a bit after that explanation, "Fine, if ya say so."

Kassandra, her legs crossed, stared deeply at Eiro, "So? What exactly makes you so special that you would be chosen for this sort of ability? You said you started out as an imp, right? Who were you in that 'past life' of yours then?"

Armodeus, Partax and Shimour already knew what Eiro was about to say, because he had specifically left out the details about this, due to the new revelation that he had been given.

"I was the Sage," Eiro explained, and the three Masters that just learned about this were once more silent.

"The Sage? As in, the great wizard? That sage?"

"Mhm," Eiro replied to Meshi, "And... before I continue, I want to ask, but do any of you actually remember who the former... or well, last Sage was?"

"Some nobody, I guess?" Partax pointed out, "I can't remember a name, but they must've been nothing special. I do seem to remember hearing about some of their feats here and there, but I didn't particularly care," the halfling said, and the others seemed to be in agreement. None of them could remember the Sage's name.

"Right. The former Sage's name has been erased from the world altogether. To the point where hearing it again nearly... nearly killed Nelly," Eiro said, quickly continuing before they could all speak up. He noticed that they were shocked to hear what he had said, so it was important, "She's recovering already. The Naiad Queen healed her.

She still hasn't woken up, but the duplicate I mentioned is watching her without swimming even ten feet away from her."

"Well, that's something, at least," Orion sighed in relief.

Eiro looked at the people in front of him and slightly sighed, "Though... it seems like not just their name was erased. But the Sage themself was just 'deleted', basically. And there's just one person that has remembered. Apparently the Sage, I... used to be Morgan le Fay."

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