Demon's Virtue
Chapter 90: Trouble in the Dozens

Just in case any outsiders were around, Eiro slowly placed his new mask onto his face before jumping off of Lugo's back to walk through town instead of riding through as he pulled his hood up. Luckily the hood itself also blocked off a little bit of the sound that was going on, although it was basically minimal considering how loud everything seemed to Eiro, despite it being so early in the morning that the sun hadn't even started going up yet.

Eiro knew that Tom usually opened his shop around Dawn, so he would need to wait a little longer until then. And while the Demon stood right in front of the Guild, he was just looking around, trying to get used to everything getting louder and louder as more people woke up, while he also wanted to make sure he would notice if one of those three ended up approaching him.

"Hmm… Isn't this a little boring? Can't we go sightseeing or something?" Nelli asked as she was floating next to Eiro, who looked at her confused, "Sightseeing? In a village with maybe 400 people? You know the only notable thing here are the statues of the four ladies, who you've met literally more than anyone living here in this town?" Eiro pointed out, and Nelli just quietly clicked her tongue.

"Hey, leave me be~! Can't I be bored?" She asked, and Eiro turned his head and smirked at her from underneath his mask, "If you don't want to be bored, I can take out one of my books and-"

"Nevermind~…" Nelli replied immediately before she kept floating in the air with her eyes closed, as if she was laying on an invisible bed right next to Eiro, before Eiro could hear some footsteps inside of the Guild-Building, which meant that Tom seemed to be ready to open up. And so, the Demon stood right in front of the door and subconsciously concentrated on it, soon hearing the sound of metal scratching against metal, before a clicking sound could be heard, and the door was then slowly opened.

"Hm?" Tom asked, looking at the figure in front of him and then raised his brows surprised, "Oh, Eiro! New cloak and mask, huh?" The middle-aged guild Master asked, and Eiro slowly nodded his head.

"Mhm…" He hummed, and then stepped into the Guild before Tom closed the door again with a slight sigh. "Everything alright? You don't usually come around this time of the month. Did something happen?" Tom asked, before Eiro just slowly nodded his head.

"Yes, actually… Jura passed away last week." Eiro explained, and Tom turned around toward him with shock in his face, nearly dropping the cane he used to support his crooked legs onto the ground. "What..? Jura is… dead?" Tom asked, and slowly made his way around the counter to sit down on his chair while Eiro took his mask off.

"He is. But he went with a smile, at least." Eiro pointed out, hoping that this was enough to at least turn the mood around a little again, "He left behind some notes for me and the children, and in one of them it said you had some Forest-Spider Silk that I should use to make something." The Demon said, hoping to just get right to the point, before Tom slowly nodded his head.

"That… that's right, I do… So is that why Jura asked me to gather some of it the last time he was here? I was not aware it would be the last time I would see him…" Tom muttered quietly, slowly standing up again to go get the Silk Eiro asked for, coming back out a few moments later to place the bundle onto the counter.

"Thank you. What do I owe you?" Eiro asked as he moved his hand underneath his cloak to try and grab the pouch he had under there, but Tom quickly stopped him, "It's on me, don't worry." Tom said, "Jura was a great man. I can give you a little silk for free, I would say." The middle-aged man said quietly, before Eiro lightly smiled and grabbed the bundle of Silk. "Thank you. I really appreciate it." He said, and for a while, it seemed like Tom was trying to think of something to say, before he remembered something else that Eiro should know about.

"Ah, right… Those travelers that opened up the request I gave you last time left, saying they should have done it themselves in the first place. They seemed pretty strong, so I get it… But yeah, sorry if you already worked on it. I can give you some compensation, but you won't be able to advance your rank."

"It's fine, I'm the reason they left so early. I had a little bit of a 'falling out' with them, you could say." Eiro explained, and Tom slowly nodded his head.

At any other time he would have been surprised and would have asked about what happened, but it seemed like the thing with Jura hit him a bit harder than Eiro would have expected. He did live near here longer than Tom was even alive, after all, so Tom ended up getting to know him pretty well, just like most people of this town.

It was just that in recent years, he became far more closed off and didn't often return to the town. Nonetheless, this message was a bad surprise for everyone.

"Eiro, if you or the children need any help, you know you can rely on practically everyone of this village, right?" Tom pointed out, and the Demon slowly nodded his head. "I know. Thank you." He said, and then slowly turned around again, "That was really all for now. I'm going to be back in a few weeks, so I'll see you then." Eiro said, and then placed his mask back onto his face and made his way back outside, while Tom just waved to see him off.

"So, is there anything else you want to do?" Nelli asked as she looked down at the Imp, who simply shook his head. "At the very least, I don't have any plans." Eiro explained, and then looked around to see if he could find Lugo, who was currently just laying around in some corner of the central place, so the Demon quickly made his way over toward him to get going, although just as he was doing so, he heard something rather surprising and unsettling.

Numerous heavy steps that echoed through his ears, as well as metal rubbing against metal, producing a light creaking that Eiro found extremely uncomfortable. The smell of blood became stronger the closer that sound came as well, but the blood had a muddy, dirty scent to it, so it most likely belonged to monsters instead of people.

Eiro turned around toward the source of the sound and in the distance, a few minutes' walk away from the town's gate that Eiro had a perfect view of right now, a group of Armored men approached the village.

The armors they were wearing were the same amongst all of them, so they were probably soldiers instead of attacking bandits, and the village militia stood in front of the gate looking at them in a manner that suggested these soldiers had to be respected.

It seemed like there were people without armors there as well, but Eiro couldn't really see them. They were probably hidden behind the wall of Knights. With a quick whistle, Eiro made Lugo quickly follow him. He wasn't sure why these men were here, but he wasn't really a big fan of it in the slightest.

"Hm? What's going on?" Nelli asked surprised as Eiro hurried into one of the alleyways that Lugo could fit into, and the Demon just slightly frowned. "We just need to hide a bit… I want to see what's going on." Eiro said, and quickly ended up on the other side of the alleyway, where he could already see the place he was looking for, the stables.

He hurried over there and looked at the stablekeeper, who was currently cleaning the hoofs of one of the horses in the front. "Jim, can I leave Lugo in here for a while? It won't be too long, but I don't want him running around wildly…" Eiro explained, and the Stablekeeper looked at the figure in front of him and slowly nodded his head.

"Hmm, sure ye can. There's a spot in the very back, if ya want-" Jim pointed out as he looked into the open stables, and Eiro nodded his head as he looked at Lugo, "Get in there. Thanks, Jim, I owe you one. I'll be back in a bit." The Demon said, and without saying anything else hurried back into the alleyway he came from. He had a pretty bad feeling about this all somehow.

And as he was doing so, Eiro pushed his hand to the side and then held his index finger and thumb toward each other as if he was grabbing something small, before a small black bead appeared there. Immediately, Eiro pushed the Magic Stone into his shirt, placing it right onto the small cup he was currently forming with the end of his tail to push the Magic Stone onto the center of his chest.

While the thin appendage wasn't physically strong, it was an incredibly amazing carrier for Mana, so it was easy to push mana into the Shadow Magic Stone and then move it right into Eiro's heart to spread the Shadow Mana throughout his whole body.

[Your Body is being saturated in Shadows. You become quicker, harder to notice, and close to silent]

This was the first time Eiro did this since gaining his new card, and the sensation was weirdly… liberating. It freed him up a little, as if his body became lighter. It technically did, but Eiro somehow felt a pure joy at practically being unable to be noticed right now.

Quickly, he took a look around and then found some ridges in the side of the house the Demon was hiding behind, and quickly pushed his fingers inbetween one of them to pull himself up. Relatively swiftly, Eiro was at the top of the wall and then pulled his body onto the flat roof, which had shadows covering it because of the quite tall building standing next to this one, blocking out the early morning sun.

From here, Eiro had a pretty good view of the central place, which he expected the group of Soldiers to have as a destination. To Eiro's luck, his expectations were spot-on, because the Soldiers soon entered the open space and immediately had a rather large, at least for this village, group of spectators surrounding them.

Soon, the head of this village approached the one that seemed to be the leader of the Soldiers, a tall built man with dark brown hair and eyes, and an armor painted in gold and silver. He had a sword on his waist and a shield on his back, but judging from the state of both of them, and the nonexistent smell of blood on them, he was practically the only one amongst the Soldiers that hadn't fought anything.

Eiro noticed that the village head wanted to introduce himself right now because he took a deeper breath than he noticed for his normal pace of breathing, but before he could, he was interrupted by the man in the bright armor.

"My name is Rumia Legios Argenson, Baron to our Holy King. We were given the task to, from now on, supervise this… town, as we require the assistance of the Four Ladies. We will gladly accept your assistance with our cause, and hope you will accept us without problems." The man explained, and somehow, Eiro felt more than just annoyed at the choice of words this man showed right there.

Would it be worth it to try and kill them? It seemed pretty troublesome to have to deal with them running around here… He was positive that they wouldn't be able to find Eiro's house as well, so he wasn't really worried all that much about that part of it, but instead more about the 'Assistance of the Four Ladies'. That meant that they would have to stay here for at least another year in order to be able to meet all of them… Meaning, Eiro had to catch their attention at least four times, as he was the only one left to lead the Ladies to town for now.

But then, Rumia said something that really didn't agree with Eiro in the slightest, "As such, we will also honorably take on the role of serving as the Ladies' gudies, and thank you for your help with finding our tasks in advance."