Demon's Virtue

Eiro sat down on a small throne of ice that he made for himself, while Ariella looked down at the corpses within the ice.

"You killed all of these people?" She asked, and Eiro quietly laughed in response, "I'd hope so. I would be surprised if they were still alive." The Demon pointed out. The Nephilim turned around with a light frown.

"You know exactly that wasn't where I'm going." Ariella groaned, "Why did you kill all of these people?"

"To ascend in the organization's rankings, of course. Oh, and to gather 'offerings' for someone." 

"The Necromancer that you want to come here?" Ariella replied. Eiro quickly nodded his head, "Exactly. I figured she would be happy to get some good materials out of coming here, at least. Considering that I don't have any direct plans to have her deal with the necromancer I'm hinting at in the rumors."

Ariella crossed her arms with a smirk, "Yeah, I'd be surprised if you wanted her to kill you."

Eiro raised his brows confused, "What? I'm not talking about myself, I'm talking about the actual incredibly powerful Necromancer that's hiding out here in town. I just know that I'd have to help her, and I don't want to bother with that. The Necromancer is currently in a location where he won't be able to mess with anyone for now, at least not at a grand level."

"...There's actually a powerful Necromancer here in town?" Ariella asked with a wry smile, and Eiro stared back at her, "Of course there is. I figured you'd know, having been Letter 'C' until not too long ago."

"I don't know everything about this town either. But wait, I don't get it, if there's already a powerful Necromancer here, then why are you luring another one to this place?" The Nephilim asked Eiro, while the Demon locked eyes with her.

"...Alright, why exactly do you think I need that Necromancer to come here?" Eiro asked, and Ariella tilted her head to the side, "Because you want to create an Undead army to take out 'The Devil'?"

Eiro slowly rubbed the bridge of his nose as he shook his head, "No, that's not why. I'm not going to use Undead, they won't be of much help anyway. 'The Devil' is probably amongst the weaker Royals, combat-wise, he's just an incredible plotter. A trickster, schemer. Idiotic Undead that won't be able to see through the slightest of tricks are just going to be useless."

"...So why am I here, if this isn't about 'The Devil'?" Ariella asked confused, and Eiro stared at her, slightly taken aback, "Ariella, you're the one that told me to deal with the 'Undead Hunters'. That's why you're here. So that you can rest assured that nothing will happen to that friend of yours. Why would you think this was about 'The Devil'?"

Eiro let out a deep sigh, "If you don't want to be here anymore, then you can head off. But don't bother me because of Undead Hunters anymore. And by the way, just to put this out there, you could easily take care of these guys yourself. You didn't even need my help." Eior pointed out, and Ariella turned away for a moment.

"I know I could. I already killed one of them earlier today. The reason why I came to you wasn't so that you would kill them all, but so that you could take responsibility for the problems you've caused. Which you're obviously not doing, because you don't think anything is wrong."

"Yeah, nothing is wrong because this was within my expectations. Rather, I wanted them to come here, so that I could give the Necromancer something fun to play around with. It's not my fault that your little friend is a novice Necromancer that doesn't know how to hide her magic." Eiro groaned, "If you're that worried about her, just give her your artifact. It can hide that kind of stuff, can't it?"

Ariella looked at Eiro with a deep glare, "You're a piece of shit, you know that?"

"Yes, of course I know that. But here I am, trying to deal with your shitty insecurities anyway. And again, I don't fucking know why you would be scared of these weak-ass Life Mages and Paladins. They're literally not the lightest threat to you. Just stay around your friend for a while, and deal with anything that comes up. It's not like the Undead Hunters are going to be a huge threat to her anyway with you around. Even if they fling Life Magic everywhere, your friend's going to be totally fine. Necromancers aren't injured by-" Eiro started to get slightly heated as he talked back at Ariella, and then finally realized.

He slumped down into his ice-throne and groaned loudly, "By Lady Winter, just fucking tell me that she's an undead next time, will you?"

"Wh-What? How do you..." Ariella took a step back, shocked, as she locked eyes with Eiro. The Demon rolled his eyes, "Simple. Because you wouldn't be afraid otherwise. You can kill any Undead Hunter you want, but if they use some form of Life Golem, which seemed to be your greatest concern anyway, to sneak past your perception, they can still be a threat. The only way that's possible is if your friend isn't just a Necromancer, but an Undead herself. Let me guess – she's some form of lich?"

"..." Ariella silently stared back at Eiro, and then slowly turned away, "She's not a lich, she's just a 'Skeleton Mage', according to her race... I met her a few months ago on my searches. She completely kept her memories from when she was alive. It's because of a skill of hers, it's a-"

"Unique skill. Figures. Those are honestly a pain. Alright, change of plans. I didn't want you to come there yet. Tomorrow at 8pm, come to my house with the girl." The Demon said, quickly writing the exact location down on a piece of paper that he then handed to Ariella, "It's a safe place for her to be, and we'll be able to figure something out. And I have someone to introduce you to. It's just that, if you don't behave when you meet them, I'll have to kill you." Eiro said bluntly, "Even though I clearly don't want to."

"I don't know if that's really as 'clear' as you want it to be." Ariella replied, "Fine, I'll trust you with this. But I swear, if this is some sort of trick, I'm not going to hesitate to try and kill you either."

Eiro quickly shrugged, "Yup, I know. Now, I don't think that they're going to come back tonight, so you can head off for now. I'm sure you're worried about the girl."

The Demon locked eyes with Ariella, who slowly nodded her head, "You're right, I'm incredibly worried. Thanks." The Nephilim replied, as she spread out her wings. She quickly lifted herself off the ground, and proceeded to fly off toward town.

Meanwhile, Eiro was sitting there, deep in thought, "Alright, I guess it's time for me to go on a hunt." The demon pointed out. He got rid of the Death Magic he was infused with, and stretched his body to get rid of this stuffy feeling that came with this sort of infusion. He took a deep breath as he took the first step forward, and buried his foot inside of the ice. With as much force as he could muster without cracking the ice, Eiro jumped forward and flapped his wings for the extra boost.

Luckily, the 'Undead Hunter' that ran away was still close enough for Eiro to catch up to him. It's only been a few minutes since he ran away, after all. Eiro made sure to move without making a sound, before proceeding to dive right into the Hunter's shadow without him noticing. Here, Eiro would simply hide out until this Undead Hunter met up with others of the same trade, so that he could jump out and kill them all at once.

That might make the whole process a bit easier than having to wait for them. Maybe Eiro could even catch one of them if they had access to Life Magic to study the element a bit more. And if they were alive, the Queen of Undeath would possibly appreciate them as a gift as well. Eiro just wanted to make sure that he could get on her good side as quickly as possible. A lot was depending on them getting along, now that Eiro already laid out everything to lure her to this capital city.

Luckily, it seemed like Eiro would soon get access to the perfect gifts for her.

--- 

Eiro sat inside of his study and kept note of the current progress of his plans, and what exactly he would have to do for everything to proceed properly.

"Alright, at this rate, I'm definitely going to have evolved one more time by the start of the tournament this summer. Except if this evolution happens in a completely different way, that is. Nelli, do you know anything about Monsters with Legendary skills?" 

The Naiad floated next to the Demon and hummed in thought, "Nope, I don't think so. Haven't heard of anything like that before. But I wouldn't imagine it to be too different from evolution through the cards?"

"But those are Unique Evolutions. This is going to be a Legendary Evolution. It's going to be on a whole other level. Maybe I should try and speed the process up a bit?" 

"Well, you could always spend your free-time to go hunt monsters. You know there's this 'Noble Alliance' that was recently found." Nelli pointed out, and Eiro crossed his arms in thought, "Maybe I should just wipe that place out, yeah. A couple of strong Noble monsters should push my level up by a handful. Or I could go for it and try to kill 'The Death' once the 'Queen' gets here. She can steal its techniques, I get the experience. Everyone would be happy, right?"

Just as Eiro was saying this, he slowly turned around. He noticed someone approaching this building from the distance.

"Well, I guess we should keep plotting all this sometime later. For now, we have a guest to entertain." Eiro slowly opened the window and jumped out of it, carefully landing on the area at the front of the manor.

Just a couple of meters in front of him, Ariella landed, while holding someone that was tightly wrapped in cloth. Eiro could see her form anyway. 

It was the skeletal girl that Ariella was speaking about. Ariella carefully set her down, and the girl looked around nervously. Her hollow eye-sockets seeming to pull in any bit of light around. Cracks were covering her skull in multiple parts, barely holding her together.

Eiro could tell that she had quite a bit of mana, a monstrous amount. However, something else was even weirder. She had something that no Undead should possess.. This Undead girl possessed Life Force.