Demon's Virtue

Eiro stood up from his seat, trying to suppress the sound of his bones popping and cracking under his own weight. He snapped his finger and a flash of light appeared behind his back, throwing a strong shadow on the ground in front of him. That shadow soon detached from Eiro, as Mislan appeared in front of him.

After a bow to the demon, Mislan began to explain, "According to my Master's wishes, I am going to stay in this town for the time being. While I am not able to stay away for an extended period of time, due to my nature as my Master's shadow, for the next week I will stay here and assist the people of the human village into understanding the optimal direction for their growth."

Gobu frowned lightly, looking at Eiro, "My Lord, while I don't have anything against that decision... do you not trust us to take care of them properly?"

Eiro locked eyes with him, and then slowly shook his head, "Not at this moment, no. The scent of rage and hatred you give off is overpowering, Gobu."

The hobgoblin flinched lightly, jumping onto his feet, "Th-That doesn't mean that I can't do my job as you ask me to!"

"It's not about that. I do trust you to do what I tell you to, otherwise I wouldn't have given you the position of this town's Lord. Even I can't fully control myself when dealing with someone I abhor. As much as we would like to, it's almost impossible to be completely neutral and ignore your own feelings. But that's why the humans are here.

They're not here to be experiments or playthings, they're here to prove that it's possible for people and monsters to coexist," Eiro explained, turning from the hobgoblin over to Marius, and then back to Gobu, "You will take over their training at some point, but for now, you have to focus on learning instead of teaching. You need to learn that there's no reason for you to hate all people.

It's going to take a long time, but I don't think it's a good idea to simply throw you into the deep end."

Gobu lowered his head and slowly nodded, "I see... I will do my best, my Lord."

"I'm sure you will," the demon smiled, facing Marius again, "Plus, it should be easier for the humans to learn from Mislan in the beginning. They have already met him. And being around him more will prepare them to engage with other monsters later on."

Marius quickly agreed, "Yes, from what the others have been telling me, they wanted to see Lord Mislan again anyway, to thank him for the help as well."

"In that case, it doesn't seem like there'll be an issue with this plan. I will have to take my leave soon, so for now, Marius please wait here and go through the list I just gave you with Mislan and Boju. And Gobu," Eiro walked up to the hobgoblin, "Follow me."

Gobu nervously swallowed, nodding his head. He followed the Demon as they walked to one of the separate rooms, and as the door closed behind the two, Gobu immediately fell onto his knees and lowered his head, "I truly apologize for my attitude against the human, I merely-"

"Get up. Of course I want you to stop being so aggressive, don't get me wrong, but that's not what this is about," Eiro shook his head annoyed, and Gobu slowly looked up at him.

"Then what...?"

"I'll be gone for the next three months. Before then, I want to hear if you're ready to become my Servant."

Gobu's eyes widened, but he didn't need to hesitate at all to nod his head, "Yes, my lord! I am ready!"

"There is really no need to rush; if you want to wait until I'm back then-"

"No! Please, I... I've been waiting for this."

Eiro nodded, walking up to Gobu. He squatted down, placing his hand onto the hobgoblin's cheek, "Are you sure?"

Gobu's pupils dilated. His heart sped up, and his head carefully tipped forward. Eiro let his mana flow into the hobgoblin's body. Usually, his foreign mana would be rejected by Gobu's own, especially since it was fairly potent. But Gobu was fully accepting him, and so, Eiro could do something that would usually be the greatest violation to someone else's being.

Eiro was taking over Gobu's mana. His own and the hobgoblin's mixed within Gobu's body, and the control was given over to Eiro. He was taking over the mana, the blood vessels. The bones, the liver, the stomach, the heart. Everything was becoming Eiro's own. And it only took a few moments as well, and Gobu's senses didn't take long to realize this either.

His muscles tensed up and his joints locked into place, as he wasn't even able to breathe anymore. And then, once every part of Gobu became Eiro's, even the light shining into his eyes, the Demon said a few simple words.

"May you continue to serve me well."

Eiro released the direct control as Gobu was flooded with incomparable pain. Trying to scream, the goblin realized that no sound was able to escape his mouth. Gobu's body quickly started to undergo rapid changes. Different to the evolution that Eiro was currently undergoing, this was a mutation, an extremely rapid change to a physical form through the influence of Eiro's abilities.

The skin on Gobu's upper forehead cracked and split open as two black horns pushed their way out, covered in already congealing blood. Gobu's muddy green skin thickened as a carapace-like shell formed on his skin. In general his body bulked up a bit, and then sunk back in as his muscles condensed.

This happened a few times, and it was as if his body was pulsating underneath the carefully hardening chitin.

And so, as massive amounts of mana poured from the goblin's core, his body heated up and became stronger. So, so much stronger than before. The bulk of the transformation was over within just a few minutes, but as Gobu adjusted to the mana, he would further settle in over the next couple weeks.

Turning magic into a servant was vastly different and a much more streamlined process compared to turning a living being into a servant.

Gobu tried to push himself up so that he could at least sit on the ground. His arms felt shaky, and he looked down at himself, "I... this feels amazing."

Eiro smiled at the hobgoblin, "I'm glad you think so. Work hard until you reach your next evolution, I'm sure you should be able to get even more benefits from it than just this."

Gobu looked up at his lord, "Are you sure? This in itself is already... I feel so... powerful!"

"This is nothing just yet," the demon grinned lightly, "Take it easy for a few days until your body adjusts to this properly. Like this, you should be able to handle almost everything that could ever come at you while I'm away."

"Yes! Yes, my lord! This opportunity... I will never forget it!"

---

Lugo came to a halt in front of the steps of the manor. It was still quite early in the day, just around lunchtime, and Eiro was here just as he promised he would be. But he wouldn't be able to hold on for much longer. Things should be quite calm here, though. If he was able to just sit down for the next few hours, maybe holding on until the kids were satisfied was possible.

He wanted to be there for them himself as much as absolutely possible. After all, for the next three months... he could only be here and interact with them in the form of duplicates.

Of course, the consciousness of those duplicates was Eiro's own, but there was still always a bit of a difference. As though he was watching things through some kind of filter. Eiro just wanted to spend as much time with them without that filter as he could.

Every step was agony as Eiro made his way up the stairs. He felt weaker than when he was just a grunt; a little imp that had barely just unlocked his stats. It was a sickening weakness that made his stomach churn, but Eiro knew it was just temporary. He would enter that coccoon, and come out stronger than he had ever been before.