Demon's Virtue

Eiro's body sunk into the couch, as if his muscles themselves were settling and starting to drop the moment he tried to relax them. Solomon dropped down next to him, while Kassandra, Orion and Shimour sat down on the couch across from them. Meshi seemed to prefer standing, so he stood behind the other masters.

"Again, I'm sorry for the assumption... I just didn't think that even someone like Eiro would just come barging in here," Shimour explained, and Solomon turned his head toward the demon beside him.

"Yes, well... I just got used to it," the king pointed out with a long sigh, turning back to the four people across from him, "So? Who are you four? I assume that Eiro didn't just grab some random people off the road and reveal that he's a demon."

Kassandra scoffed, glaring at Eiro, "For a thing like that, he really does a good job at hiding his identity, huh?"

Eiro sighed lightly, "They're the masters that I invited, I figured I would come introduce you to them. Shimour was already here last time, when you sent Lognir to come check on me. That rude elf is Kassandra, who mastered hand-to-hand combat. To her left is Orion, the master of dagger mastery. And behind those three is Meshi, the master of freerunning."

The demon could hear Solomon's heartbeat speed immensely. Adrenaline was starting to flow through him and he was sweating heavily. With a slight sigh, Eiro infused his breath with some magics that he used to envelop the king. It was mostly healing magic with some mental interference that would slow Solomon's heartbeat and help his nervousness.

Realising what happened, Solomon glanced over for a moment, but soon focused back onto the masters, "I see. It is a pleasure to meet you four. So you four will be training Eiro?"

"That was the plan, at least," Meshi replied, leaning onto the back of the couch "But he can barely walk, let alone train."

"What?" Solomon stared at the demon again, but Eiro just sighed and shook his head.

"No, the Devil didn't injure me. I'm undergoing evolution right now. Again, I'll fill you in later. Now stop looking back and forth or you're going to break your own neck," Eiro explained, "I brought them here because each of those guys is basically the military force of a country. Considering the trouble Partax caused, you shouldn't be left out of the loop."

"I do appreciate that," the king responded with some slight relief in his voice. Relief that came both from the fact that Eiro wasn't injured, and that there was no deeper intent behind the introduction of the four masters. Eiro's plans were somewhat hard to see through, so whenever he did something like this that seemed a bit weird, Solomon's anxiety skyrocketed.

Before he could say anything else, Orion spoke up.

"While I understand the general concern, there is little need to actually worry. We are all quite responsible, luckily," Orion explained with a slight chuckle, but Eiro couldn't help himself but scoff.

"Seriously? Meshi was considering breaking into the academy grounds and running around the buildings."

The moment Eiro said this, Orion, Shimour, and Kassandra turned around and looked at the man standing behind them, "Seriously?" Kassandra asked, and Meshi awkwardly looked away.

"O-Of course not!" Meshi responded nervously, making the truth clearly visible to anyone. After a few more stares, Meshi stared at Eiro confused, "How did you even know that? Am I really that predictable?"

"I'm not stupid, I know what the academy would look like to someone with your running habits. I also trained with your techniques, remember?" Eiro sighed loudly, "Jura gifted me a puppet with chips that had your skills ingrained in them. He visited you all for those, right?"

"Ah... I do remember that happening," Kassandra let out, "I didn't think he was serious about that. But you really trained with our techniques already?"

"Yes, hence why I want to learn more from you. Your techniques are the basis of all my combat habits. Right, Shimour?" Eiro asked, and the large master of stealth slowly nodded, remembering the short battle they had the last time he came to visit.

"It's true. Of course, he's less refined and not as powerful when just looking at those techniques individually, but he can make up for it with his versatility and ability to combine different techniques together almost perfectly," Shimour explained, looking over at Kassandra and Orion, "Rather, he's better at using your techniques than either of you is at using the other's."

Both of the fighters looked at each other, turning back to Eiro.

"Is that so?" Orion asked, the intention behind his stare being clear as day. Similarly, Kassandra's fighting spirit was awakened as these two combat-maniacs stared at the demon in front of them with clear curiosity.

Eiro rolled his eyes, "You'll get to see it during training. Rather, since I'll have to alter my duplicates quite a bit anyway, I can make each of them perfectly suited to only your techniques so you can really see just how good I am at using them."

At this point, just seeing their expressions and curiosity, Eiro was sure that he had at least three of these four masters in the bag.

Even if they only taught him for a couple hours total, it would be worth it having them around; Eiro was already deeply memorising the exact way that each of their muscles moved at the slightest things so that he could make his body adapt to it during a later stage of his evolution.

The only issue now was Shimour; of course, he had already agreed to teach Eiro before, but the situation was quite different then. While Eiro was sure Shimour wouldn't necessarily go back on his word considering the personality he has been displaying, it was also clear that Shimour wasn't as trustworthy as he seemed.

He was the master of stealth. Of hiding himself. If someone could hide their whole existence from the world, then it was easy enough to hide one's true intentions and thoughts, even from someone like Eiro.

Of course, from his behaviour until now, Eiro had no reason to believe that he was lying or had some bigger scheme in mind, but it wasn't possible to become a master of a skill like stealth without hiding things or lying about them. Rather, Eiro knew for a fact that there was something Shimour was hiding. He knew that there were gaps somewhere, that something was off.

Eiro's whole body was screaming that this was the case, but he didn't know what it was.

It could be a scar on his cheek that he didn't like the look of. It could also be a weapon that he was carrying with him at all times. Or, and this was the worst case scenario, it could be psychopathic habits and behaviour. Again, Eiro couldn't know yet.

He might never know, but it was enough to put Eiro a bit on edge around him, despite the fact that he seemed the most reasonable out of the masters that he had met, excluding Armodeus of course. Even Jura was a bit of a weird guy, all things considered.

"We can discuss that later, I'm sure," Shimour pointed out with a smile, looking at Solomon, "I'm sure it would be better to have a proper conversation with you, your Majesty. It looks like we will be staying for a while, and seeing how close you are to Eiro, this surely won't be the last time we meet."

Solomon slowly nodded his head, "I do come to visit Eiro sometimes. Things have just been a bit stressful recently; international tensions and such. I wanted to come and check up on everyone after the battle, but things have been especially chaotic since-" the king pointed out, seemingly putting something together in his mind.

He carefully and slowly turned his head back to the demon next to him, "Hey, Eiro?"

"...Yes?"

"Was the Devil trying to start a war against us?"

Eiro slowly turned away; or at least, he tried. The muscles in his neck had molten awkwardly, making it a bit hard for him to do. While he repaired his flesh, Eiro was forced to just stare forward awkwardly for a while, seeing Solomon's expression in his periphery.

But in the end, there was only one thing that came to Eiro's mind that he felt he could say, "Well... he's not anymore."