Demon's Virtue

In the morning, Eiro waited outside of the cave together with Jess and the Slime. Eiro was trying to make sure that he kept the Slime warm, because he didn't want him to mess the sealing of the hobgoblins' monstrosity up because he was too cold.

Soon, the five hobgoblins made their way over toward Eiro, while Gobo smiled broadly, "Gobo bring Hobs! Give shiny fire!" He exclaimed, and Eiro slowly nodded his head, "Sure. In a bit. First, come over here, Gobo." The Demon told the Hobgbolin Chief, who quickly came over and squatted down in front of Eiro. The slime crawled up Eiro's arm, and then looked at the Mountain Hobgoblin.

"We made the concoction already, now you need to do the rest. We slimes never did the direct application, but I can walk you through it." The Slime pointed out, and Eiro slowly nodded his head, "Fair enough. Then what do I need to do?" Eiro asked. The Slime quickly explained.

"Pick up the concoction, preferably with water magic so that you ain't gonna dirty it somehow, and then apply it on its chest in this pattern." As the Slime spoke, it turned part of its body flat and then painted a pattern of some sort of magic-circle, or rather sealing-circle, onto its own body. Eiro nodded his head and then looked at Gobo.

"Lay down on your back." Eiro said, and without hesitation, Gobo did as told. It was good that he knew how to follow commands. Eiro wasn't entirely sure how such a submissive Hobgoblin ever became the chief of this place and then became as arrogant as he was the first time they met, but he didn't care too much either. As long as he was submissive like this now, Eiro didn't care.

The demon pushed his finger toward the wooden bowl filled with the liquid, which had a tone of red so dark that it nearly looked black and then created a small stream between the bowl and his finger. He pulled it over toward Gobo's chest and drew exactly what the Slime showed him. And despite the bowl meant for Gobo not being empty yet, the slime stopped him.

"Oi, that's enough. I made more just in case we needed it, but overdoing it just because we have enough isn't good, especially when it comes to this kinda stuff. Too much medicine is gonna kill you as well, you know?"

"Mhm, got it." Eiro said, and then just stopped, making sure that the sealing-circle really had an equal amount of the concoction everywhere, and then looked back at the Slime.

"And now... hold the Hobgoblin down as tightly as possible so that it can't move." It told Eiro, who quickly did just that using Earth Magic, wrapping some rock around Gobo's arms, neck, hips and legs.

"Repeat what I say while pushing mana into the concoction. And make sure the mana is evenly spread around." The slime said, and then started, "Sird harr requim, partus harr requom. Urtur krus harr orgum, urtur..."

Eiro started repeating the chant that the slime was saying while pushing his mana into the concoction, and then saw the reason for why Gobo had to be held down like this. The concoction literally dug itself into the Hobgoblin's skin in a rather painful manner. The Hobgoblin's skin sizzled like Eiro's skin did when he came in contact with Holy Energy back in the day, parting like someone pushed a hot metal rod through loose snow.

But the moment that the concoction dug itself deeper into the Hobgoblin's body, its skin and flesh grew back and covered the concoction up. At that point, the chant was finished as well.

[You have sealed Gobo's Monstrosity]

[Beginner Sealing Arts skill learned!]

[Beginner Sealing Arts skill leveled up!]

[Beginner Sealing Arts skill leveled up!]

...

...

...

[Beginner Sealing Arts skill leveled up!]

Just like this, in one go, Eiro learned a pretty useful skill and leveled it up to level 8 instantly. How nice. Gobo was breathing heavily as the pain in his chest slowly subsided and Eiro removed the 'rock shackles'.

The Hobgoblin slowly sat up and held its chest in a bit of a panic, "Gobo no pain?" He asked, surprisingly calm after all this, and Eiro slowly nodded his head, "Mhm, no pain. Sorry about that, we had to do this." The Demon told him, and then pointed at a spot over to the side.

"Sit down over there for now. We'll do the same to the other Hobgoblins now, and then we'll try to teach you how to make that 'shiny fire', alright?" Eiro asked, and Gobo slowly moved over there and just sat down. It was weird, usually Gobo still looked around and especially glared at the people here, but now he was just calmly observing what Eiro was doing.

Who knew, maybe a monster's monstrosity was the main thing holding them off from easily getting more intelligent? After all, up to the median noble area, most monsters were complete and utter morons. But above then, they were mostly quite smart. This just showed that at some point, you couldn't gain more strength without being smart enough about it.

Either way, for now, Eiro repeated the same process with the other Hobgoblins. And sure, they were screaming while it was happening because of the pain, but it simply disappeared the moment the process was completely done and they were calm and somewhat excited, so it most likely always made the other hobgoblins think that it wasn't that big a deal, and they readily followed Eiro's command because they were more scared of him than what he was doing to them right here.

"Alright, we're done." The slime said, "Can you let me get back inside to the fire now? I'm cold as shit." The slime complained, and Eiro just nodded and went ahead to throw the slime through the cave's entrance, quickly trying to ignore the insults coming from the slime afterward. Instead, he paid attention to Jess, who was currently staring at the five surprisingly calm hobgoblins sitting in front of them.

"Did this really happen? They're basically just not monsters anymore?" Jess asked, but the Demon quickly shook his head, "They still have monster-abilities and instincts. The only thing that they can't access right now is this part about them that simply forces them to be aggressive. To kill. To hate. That kind of stuff."

"Ah... I see. So they're good guys now?"

"What, you think every person is a good guy?" James asked from the cave entrance, as he came out to check up on Jess and Eiro after the slime was thrown in there, "They're still monsters. Even without the thing that forces them to, they lived their life so far with that thing inside of them. They're calmer now, but I doubt they're 'good guys' now. I mean, there's more than enough bandit subjugation requests at the guild at any time, right?" The Light Elf pointed out. Eiro slowly turned around and nodded his head. James basically said what Eiro was about to say as well.

They weren't just pacifists all of a sudden, they were still dangerous. It was just that it was now possible to train them to resist their monstrosity.

"Anyway..." Eiro started, "Let's test their magic affinities now." The Demon pointed out, and one by one called the Hobgoblins forward.

The first of them was the Hobgoblin that was second-tallest right after Gobo. He had a talent for earth magic to be used in combat, although it didn't seem to be the caster-variant. Meaning, this Hobgoblin wasn't an Earth Mage, but rather something like a heavy warrior that could take in a lot of damage. Eiro already figured something like this just through this Hobgoblin's health.

"Your name will be Clypt." Eiro said, and the Hobgoblin seemed confused at what Eiro said before seeing the notification in front of it. Of course, Eiro quickly remembered what was written there to cross-reference it.

Either way, slowly, the Hobgoblin nodded his head, and now had the proper name 'Clypt', "Wait, you're naming them? And why Clypt?" Jess asked as she prepared the next affinity test, and Eiro looked at the freshly-named Hobgoblin.

"Makes it easier to call them. Better than just saying 'You' all the time. And 'Clypt' is the Ancient-Language word for 'Shield'. He will train to become a Heavy Warrior, so he will be the shield." Eiro explained quickly, and Jess slowly raised her brows, "You're that familiar with the ancient language? I only barely remembered spells so far... Somehow, whenever I try to learn the ancient language's words themselves, it just never sticks, you know?"

"I understand what you mean. The only reason I remember it is because I have my 'Memory of a Scholar' ability. And even though I've been studying the Ancient Language for a couple years now, I still didn't get anything like a skill. My guess is that there's something missing to all of it. I couldn't figure out what it is just yet though." Eiro pointed out, before he took a look at the results of the next Hobgoblin's test.

It was one of the two female ones, and it seemed like this one had an affinity for fire magic meant to be used in combat, in a similar way as Clypt did. So it seemed like this one here was meant to be a swordswoman.

"Your name will be Glat." Eiro said, and the Hobgoblin quickly accepted. She was given the Ancient-Language word for 'Sword' as a name. Then there was the male Hobgoblin with an affinity to be a wind mage, so Eiro called him 'Vent', for 'Wind'.

The fourth Hobgoblin, the second female one, had minor affinity for combat water and wind magic, but not to be a mage. Eiro thought the combination was good enough to have this one become an Archer, so he called this one 'Sagit' for 'Arrow'.

And then at last, there was Gobo. Surprisingly, he actually had multiple affinities. His greatest was for Fire, and he seemed to have the possibility to awaken advanced elemental magic for it, but he also had a strong affinity for the Darkness element. Both of them were combat-based, so Eiro just nodded his head in satisfaction.

"Then I guess we should really get started, shouldn't we?" Eiro suggested, "Teach Gobo how to manipulate his mana. And Gobo, you listen to her, or I'll seriously kill you. I'll go ahead and try to teach these guys the Common language to be up to par with Gobo at least.. So that they can start speaking to each other a little, and then next time I come here, I can start teaching them how to read, maybe."