Demon's Virtue

Silia left the room, and Eiro turned over toward Solomon, "Well, I guess that was quite an interesting conversation." The Demon pointed out, while the King let out a deep sigh.

"Interesting is a good word for it, sure. Are you positive that this is a good idea? Teaching the hero, despite the fact that you want to... you know... become the hero?"

"Well, I'll never become the hero. The hero will simply cease to exist while the concept becomes part of my being." Eiro pointed out, "But yeah, I do think it's a good idea. At the end of the day, he is still just a child. He will have grown up his whole life knowing that he is the hero, knowing that he has to be powerful. And then, I just take away the part that gives him the ability to be powerful without giving him anything in return? That is just cruel."

Solomon looked back at Eiro with his brows raised, "I'm glad to see that becoming a royal hasn't negatively unfluenced your personality too much. I was somewhat scared you might end up becoming more... cruel."

"...I mean, I sort of ended up turning Duke James into a subordinate using a contract based off a slavery sigil." The Demon replied, "And then I stole the bloodstone from Evelyn and walked away while she was sobbing like a child, so that could be seen as cruel."

With a blank expression, the king looked back at Eiro, "When... when did this happen?"

"Oh. Before my fight against Evelyn, the duke came up to me and tried to bribe me to lose the fight on purpose. So, since you said you have trouble dealing with him, I tricked him into entering a magical contract with me. It's why I didn't move or fight back for a whole five minutes at the start of our fight. Then, all I had to do is ask for a reward that he could never possibly give to me, and the punishment had set in, turning him into my subordinate. It's not as serious as a slave thing, I can't force him to do anything he genuinely doesn't want to do. And I won't use it that much. I just created that situation so that you can use the influence of Duke James to your benefit."

"...Well, thanks, but I would have preferred it if I could have done it without having to force him like that..." Solomon said with a sigh, and Eiro just shrugged, "I mean, you don't have to give him an official command. He's just going to be a bit more cooperative from now on in general, since he knows what will happen if he's not."

"Fair enough." Solomon replied, before he looked at Eiro again, "Now, about the finals... Were you worried that you might not win?"

"Oh, not at all." Eiro said bluntly, without a moment's hesitation, "I definitely didn't go all out. I didn't even use any sort of magic against him. And since I didn't want to kill him, I couldn't go for some kind of super strong single attack to try and overwhelm his ability, so I just had to be careful. If I didn't have to worry about what the public thinks, I would have won in an instant."

"Yup. Oh, and I think I need to tell you something." Eiro began, and Solomon looked back somewhat worried, "What is it?"

"That man that I fougth. He's from another world." He explained, and Solomon immediately jumped up, "What? What do you mean?"

"I mean exactly what I said. From another world. He has been summoned here through the power of the gods. Something similar happened before. The Arcane Dealer, he is from that same world, just that he reincarnated here seemingly randomly. This man had been pulled here with his full body, and was given immense power, as well as an incredibly potent blessing." Eiro explained, and Solomon stared back with a worried expression, "Then that is why he was so powerful?"

"Yes, exactly. But more importantly... the deity that summoned him was the Goddess of Negativity. A powerful goddess, sure, but... rather random for her to be the one to summon someone from the other world to kill the monster king, considering that the Goddess of Negativity is supposed to also strive off conflict between to juxtaposing sides. She should be in love with this war between people and monsters." Eiro pointed out, but Solomon wasn't sure what he was trying to say. And even Bavet was confused at this point, since he hadn't heard about what Eiro was trying to get at either.

"What's that supposed to mean? Why is it so important that the Goddess of Negativity summoned him?" The slime asked, forming a mouth on the back of Eiro's hand to speak, and the Demon let out a deep sigh in response, "Simply because of the random nature of that choice, I think it is fair to assume that this transmigrator wasn't the only one. This world is now filled with an unknown number of extremely powerful people from another world, many of which will be incapable of controlling their power properly." Eiro explained, and Solomon dropped back down onto the couch he had been sitting on, "And I think I am the reason why."

"What? What do you mean, you think you are the reason why?" Solomon asked, and Eiro slowly closed his eyes, "I am the only being in millennia that has had the chance to speak to the entity that is this world itself. I am a unique being that can destroy the balance of the world, since I can forever get rid of not only the hero and monster king, but every royal monster out there. I even spoke to the enemies of the gods themselves, beings of the arcane, and the king of the gods on top of that. I am a threat to them, clearly. And understandably so. If the gods come to bother me, if I attain the power to do so, I don't mind fighting against them." Eiro pointed out, "So I assume that they suddenly summoned all those people to this world to use them as avatars. Neutral parties from a whole other place that they can manipulate all they want."

"...This is not good. Not good at all... Do you think they're dangerous?"

"They can be. I don't know if all of them will have been given the goal to kill the monster king. But either way, we should make sure to figure out where they even are." Eiro said, slowly closing his eyes in thought. A few moments later, he opened them again, "Mislan." He let out, before the shadow servant suddenly stepped out of Eiro's shadow on the wall. Or rather, Eiro's shadow itself split off the wall and took shape.

"I'm going to create more shadow servants and attach them to different informants and merchants. Make sure to monitor them and spread around more of them through the realm of shadows." Eiro said bluntly, and Mislan quickly nodded his head, accepting said order. The Demon then looked at Solomon again, "Like this, I can spread out a web of information rather easily."

"Erm... Eiro... what is that thing...?" Solomon asked with a wry smile, pointing at Mislan. Eiro looked back confused for a moment, before realizing that he hadn't shown this ability to Solomon yet.

"Oh... when I became a royal, I gained the ability to create simple servants. Usually it only extends to people or monsters, but I assume through my magical abilities, most likely through the aspect of the Sage that is within my soul, this ability was empowered to the point where I can turn anything that I can control through magic into servants." Eiro explained briefly, "And so, I created multiple powerful servants around my tree and old home, and created Mislan here out of my own shadow. He is a named servant, so he's more powerful and intelligent. Usually, the servants I make are more like this."

Eiro stepped over to the bookshelf and pulled out a small book, placing it onto the table. He fused his mana with the shadow that the book was throwing, and then quickly turned it into a servant. The book's shadow was pulled away as a small imp-like, book-sized version of a shadow servant appeared next to it.

"Of course, while the servants are out and about, the object loses their shadow, so I usually just do it with small trinkets that I can keep somewhere else safely. But I can also quite easily do this whole thing with coins, and get them into circulation. And if I keep the shadow servants attached to the object they were created from, it's impossible to really notice anything." Eiro explained with a smile on his face, "And due to the nature of the realm of shadows, if I have the consciousness of the servant dive away into that place as long as someone that could notice them is around, not even powerful wizards will be able to spot them."

"That... that is amazing..." Solomon explained, picking up the book that had now lost its shadow. It was quite weird to look at, since it was now standing there, looking as if it was lit from all possible angles. It was still only as bright as the actual light coming in through the window allowed it to be, but it was like all light was simply let through it and was unobstructed by the book in the slightest.