Demon's Virtue

Chapter 615: The Tattoo

Quite immediately after ingesting the chunk of flesh that came from her brother’s arm, Naomi was overcome with what could only be described as a moment of pure, instantaneous pleasure. She had been starving herself of what the taboo desires. In that way, it actually seemed quite similar to what Clementine experienced through her unique skill. A sort of hunger that had to be calmed down, and that could only be done by indulging in cannibalism.

Eiro could tell that Naomi was trying to fight against being taken over by the taboo immediately after eating, so he looked at her and in a loud, clear voice, so that she could hear him no matter how distracted she may be, spoke, “Don’t resist it. Just let it take you over.”

Naomi turned toward Eiro slowly and in snapping motions, slowly shaking her head, “I-I can’t, it just-“

“I know. It’s like forcing yourself to drown when you’re underwater,” Eiro said, “But nonetheless, you have to do it. Nothing will happen to you, or anyone else in here. Alright?” he tried to reassure Naomi, who closed her eyes nervously. She took a few deep breaths, and with each exhale, Eiro noticed that the monstrosity that had been forced on her would become more dominant. Soon, her breathing sped up, and the monstrosity was more in control than Naomi itself. The moment that the balance was shifted in this force’s favor, it was like the wall holding it back broke down, and Naomi’s consciousness was flooded.

Her muscles were twitching, as if her body was trying to resist instinctively, but nonetheless, Naomi turned wild. She went berserk, and jumped at the first person she saw standing in front of of her. Eiro calmly watched as Naomi approached him, locking eyes with her only momentarily. And then, the instincts bestowed on Naomi by the monstrosity itself reacted. She was able to tell that Eiro wasn’t someone that she should mess with. He was a Royal Monster, after all. With that came the authority to rule over other monsters, which seemed to affect Naomi herself as well.

However, even then, Eiro was a bit surprised. If Naomi was affected, then that meant that his powers as a Royal were deeply ingrained in monstrosity itself, instead of being controlled by the monsters’ system. Since the ‘royal’ position was given to him by an Arcane artifact, ‘The World’ card of the Major Arcana, this could only mean that the nature of the arcane and monstrosity were connected. As monstrosity was something forced onto living beings by the gods… it seemed like the the arcane and divine were more connected to each other than Eiro assumed initially. He thought they were like two factions that were completely against each other, but that wasn’t it at all. Of course, it wouldn’t make sense if that was the case in the first place. The arcane splinters that bestow the system unto the beings living in this world were once weapons wielded by the gods. So why was it that the arcane was placed into such obscurity, as if the gods themselves wanted this to be the case?

Eiro’s curiosity was nearly overflowing, but this wasn’t the time for him to explore this idea. Rather, he just had one of his mental duplicates start exploring the idea, so that he could think about it some more later on after some progress had been made.

The Demon grabbed Naomi’s shoulder, using raw strength to force her to stand still. The monstrosity’s instincts were making sure that she didn’t even try to resist or bite Eiro. Not that it would sate her cravings in the first place – even if she ate up every single ounce of his flesh, she wouldn’t be breaking the taboo. He was a monster, not a person.

“Rudy, come over here. Just a few steps forward,” Eiro instructed his son, who was of course still blinded by Dark Magic at the moment. He slid his feet over the ground somewhat nervously. Even if he couldn’t be hurt by anything no matter what happened, suddenly being blind was still a weird feeling. Rudy most likely just didn’t want to bump into anyone. Once he came close enough, Eiro grabbed Rudy’s arm, placing it in front of Naomi’s face. Immediately, her pupils dilated as her eyes focused on the flesh in front of her. This time, there was nothing stopping her from biting into it. The moment Eiro let go of her shoulder, she pushed her head forward, and bit into Rudy’s arm. Or at least, she tried to. His skin was pushed down, but it didn’t break. Rather, Rudy was just nervously placing his hand in front of his mouth so that he didn’t start laughing because it seemed to tickle him.

“Ah, and Rudy, make sure not to let your… ‘inhabitants’ out while this is happening, alright? Their physical forms are technically made of your flesh, and I don’t know what’s going to happen if she ends up swallowing one of them whole,” Eiro pointed out, and Rudy turned his head to where he heard his father’s voice from, “Huh? I mean, they wouldn’t die, right? They can’t be hurt, just as I can’t, didn’t we try that already?”

“Well, yeah, sure, but I don’t think it would be particularly pleasant for them to spend a few days inside of someone’s body that isn’t made for them to live in, right?” Eiro pointed out as he got everything ready to start placing the tattoo on Naomi’s body. The girl herself was still trying to bite through Rudy’s arm, and didn’t seem like she wanted to stop anytime soon. Partially, it was because Eiro continued inciting her monstrosity to a point where she didn’t even realize that it wasn’t working.

But Noma was still just nervously standing there, listening to Eiro and Rudy speak to each other so casually, while his sister tried to bite their friend’s arm off, “In-Inhabitants? What are you talking about?”

“You didn’t tell them during your explanation?” Eiro asked surprised, and Rudy slowly replied, “I didn’t think about it, I guess… Erm, Noma, this is about my class. I know I told you I had an apprentice craftsman class, but that was a lie, sorry. I have a unique class called ‘Castle’. I guess it’s because my skin is an impenetrable wall, like that of a huge castle. Either way, it basically turns me into just that, a castle. And inside of me live a bunch of tiny people created by my skill. Chefs, butlers, maids… even guards. I guess I’ll show it to you later, but that’s the gist of it…” Rudy explained nervously. Noma wasn’t replying, and Rudy wasn’t able to see his reaction either, so of course he would be anxious about this situation. But soon enough, Noma simply started to laugh loudly. As if the, admittedly somewhat ridiculous sounding, description of Rudy’s skill, broke through his tense nerves.

“Seriously? You’re a castle?” He asked, slowly dropping down onto a nearby chair while continuing to laugh, although he soon stopped. Noma’s head dropped into his hands, as he nervously tried his best not to watch what was now going to happen to his sister.

Eiro slightly sighed as he looked at him. He figured something like this was going to happen, so he had suggested for Noma to leave while Eiro placed the tattoo on his sister, but he had refused to do so. He wanted to be here throughout the whole thing, supporting his sister as much as he could, even if it clearly wasn’t much right now.

Nonetheless, it was his choice, so Eiro didn’t push him out of this room even if Noma was very clearly feeling quite sick right now. If he became so sick that he would be a bother, Eiro would of course make him leave for his and his sister’s good, but it probably wouldn’t get to that point. That being the case, it was now time for Eiro to start working. He placed the tip of the needle he was holding into the ink right beside him. The ink was pulled into the hollow space of the needle, and Eiro could get started right away. In order to make his work as easy as possible, Eiro took a few deep breaths, suppressing his aura as much as possible. He wanted to get to a point where even Bavet would forget that Eiro was here if he wasn’t careful. That way, he could apply the tattoo to Naomi’s body without having to worry about her fighting back. The pain from the needle was going to be easy suppressed through some anesthetic mist he would apply to the area first.

Eiro stepped behind Naomi, and with as much accuracy and speed as he could started to apply the first section of the sealing tattoo to her back. He was able to work accurately and quickly, working in tune with the twitches of Naomi’s muscles. To speed the process up, Eiro even created a constant stream of ink between the needle and the inkpot, that way he didn’t have to stop working even for a second. But even so, he couldn’t work too fast. The ingredients in the sealing ink had to slowly merge into Naomi’s flesh before linking with her natural mana flow. Eiro could speed the process up a bit by supporting the process with his own magic, but it still took a while for everything to settle down. Since there were multiple layers to this tattoo, so that Eiro could increase the density of ink in some already inked-in parts, pracatically placing further patterns and inscriptions onto the already-effected areas. Luckily, Eiro was able to make use of some healing magic to reduce any swelling that could disturb the process.

For the next ten odd hours, Eiro busily applied the tattoo to Naomi’s body, starting with her back, then moving to her arms and legs, and now, it was finally time for her chest. However, Naomi was clearly starting to grow tired. The constant agitation that Eiro was placing her under was far too straining on her stamina, not to mention the fact that the constant impact of the monstrosity wasn’t treating her body well in general. Eiro minimized the damage as much as he could, but that didn’t mean that there was none at all. Rather, there was much more damage than Eiro had anticipated. Maybe the monstrosity was trying to defend itself against being sealed, and dideven more damage than normal in the process. 

But even so, Eiro couldn’t stop now. If he stopped now, the monstrosity would only fight back against the sealing tattoo, as if trying to rip it away, which might do permanent damage to Naomi. That which was done by now could be completely fixed after a few years of effort. But if Eiro allowed more damage to her, then that would change.