Demon's Virtue

Eiro let out a deep sigh as he looked at the ceiling. Sitting here in class while the students were taking a test was really boring. He would have nothing to do for the next half hour. Sure, he could read a book if he wanted to, but he didn't have any with him that he didn't read yet. So instead, Eiro resorted to simply manipulating his mana circuits to get more proficiency in that skill.

He played around with it a bit, seeing how random shapes and patterns in his mana circuits would influence the flow of his mana as it left his body in different places. His insight into his own mana increased by a little, but for the most part this was really just a way not to feel like he wasted his time.

At the end of the test, Eiro collected the tests, and then spoke to the students, "Alright, you can take a brief ten minute break. Talk to each other, do other homework, or just sleep, I don't care."

The Demon sat down at the desk with the filled-out tests and took out his pen as his students relaxed a bit after the test. Quite a few of them were complaining about how tough it was, but Eiro didn't particularly care if they thought it was hard. This was all stuff they were supposed to know by heart at this point. If they didn't know the answers, then that meant that they didn't study properly.

Well, this test wasn't anything too important for the students grade-wise anyway. Eiro just needed to make sure that everybody understood these theories before he moved on to the next few in class, since the new things built up on the older.

Nearly everybody had passing grades, and just a few people failed it. In general, most people seemed to understand everything, but they could still use some deeper explanations into the material.

Once the ten minute break was over, Eiro stood up with the tests in hand, already having graded them all in that short period of time, before walking through the room and giving the tests back to the children. They were obviously surprised that they already got them back, since they thought they wouldn't have to deal with this stuff for another couple of days till the next class, but Eiro was quite efficient when it came to such things. Again, he didn't want to waste any time.

"Henry, Lyla, Chris, please stay for a few minutes after class, I have to talk to you about something." The Demon said. All students were focusing on those three, since it was clear they were the ones that failed, "Oh, and Arc, you too, please."

Arc raised his head surprised. He had full points, and everyone here knew that he was the biggest genius of the new students, so they were rather confused as to why those four people were being called to stay after class.

That also meant that once class was actually over, a few students were staying a bit longer than normal, just to see what exactly they were going to talk about.

"Get to your next class already, kids. Stop loitering around." Eiro sighed when looking at those kids, and they quickly scurried away after being briefly told off like this.

And then, Eiro turned toward the three students that failed, "Now, first of all, don't worry about your grade on the test, it won't influence your final grade too much. But since I need to make sure you all properly understand the material, it would be great if you took some tutoring. Not a lot, just a few hours a week, and only until your tutor verifies that you understand everything." Eiro explained quickly and without further ado. The three students looked at each other nervously.

"But we have to do work for other classes as well... We don't have time for tutoring." One of them said, and Eiro let out a deep sigh, "I know that you have other work as well, but at the same time, I'm pretty sure that none of you kids really spend that much time on your homework. Otherwise, you wouldn't have failed this test. Most of the questions came from parts of the homework I gave you over the past few weeks, even if I changed things up a little bit."

The students didn't really know what to reply, since they knew that Eiro was right, but they simply didn't want to admit it, and the Demon looked over toward his own son.

"Arc, you'll be their tutor. You're far ahead of the material anyway, and it's quite easy for you. And since you never do your homework in the first place, let's take this as a replacement for that." Eiro said with a smile on his face, but Arc looked back at his father with a wry smile, "Err... Really? But I'm kinda busy, you know?"

"At home, all you do is sit around, mess around, or read. You have the time, both of us know that." Eiro said, in a tone that made Arc realize that the Demon wasn't asking this of him, but that he was telling Arc to do it, "Urgh, fine... But you owe me one, dad."

"No, I don't. Just help your classmates, figure out the times yourselves. I'll make sure that they understand everything in a few weeks." Eiro told the four students while rolling his eyes.

"Wait, dad..." Arc said in a pleading tone as Eiro made his way out of the classroom. But Eiro didn't pay attention to him, since he knew what Arc was trying to do. Arc needed to be more responsible when it came to class here, so this was a way to help him and these other students as well.

And Eiro made his way through the halls of the school to get to the next class that he was going to teach. However, on his way, he encountered something rather... unexpected. There were traces of a spell being cast here in the hallway, and nobody else was here. Well, no students were around at least. Usually there would be at least a couple of students around, but Eiro didn't really notice any reason for why they wouldn't be here.

"Well, let's just play along for now." The Demon muttered to himself, and stepped further through the hall. And as he did, he soon activated the spell that was planted here. A few of the candles set up on the walls sparked up brighter, and multiple fireballs were thrown at the Demon. Eiro let out a deep sigh and waved his hand to the side and a wall of wind stopped them from hitting him. To make sure that there was no damage to the hallway and the decoration within it, Eiro extinguished the flames immediately.

"Now, who would do something like this?" Eiro asked out loud, "I don't think any of the students that I know of are capable of planting spells like that. Who are you?"

The only other person that was around slowly stepped out into the hallway. He wore long wizard's robes and a pure white mask with a smiling face on it. He looked at Eiro and chuckled, "Wow, so you really are stronger than you let on. Well, I guess that was to be expected, you being a teacher here and all. But I have to apologize, for you will-"

"Mhm, sure. Could you just leave the campus, it's kind of weird that there's some random person here. And yes, I know that Richard Melachine hired you, but at the end of the day, you're still a random person. So just go ahead and leave before I make you." Eiro said bluntly. He didn't want to deal with any of this stuff anymore, it was just getting ridiculous at this point in time.

"Kikiki!" The mage laughed, as if this was all just some kind of joke, "You're quite confident for someone that was just barely able to stop one of my weakest spells."

Eiro stared back in disbelief, "What do you... 'Just barely'? Did you even watch? That was- You know what, no, I won't let you piss me off."

"Kikiki! Scared, are we~?"

While rolling his eyes, Eiro held his wooden hand forward. He formed it into a finger-gun and shaped his mana-circuits to immediately activate the air bullet spell, using the rest of his body's mana circuits to help the compression and speed of that bullet.

The mage looked back at Eiro and held his hand onto his mask, "Kikiki, getting des-"

The mage's speech was interrupted by the fact that his arm now had a hole in it, as the bullet went straight through it with little resistance.

"Eh? You didn't even protect your own body in any way? What kind of novice are you..?" Eiro asked with a wry smile, as the 'enemy' mage, who wasn't really enough of a threat to be called a proper enemy, grasped his arm in pain, "What the fuck did you just do, you absolute maniac?!"

"What, you were the one that tried to kill me, don't complain about getting hurt a bit." The Demon pointed out, quite annoyed, "Now shut it and leave, I don't have time to bring you away. And I don't want to kill you here either, so just get the fuck out, and tell Richard that he should get someone at the level of the Sage if he wants to have me killed."