Demon's Virtue

"Really? You honestly think so?" Solomon asked with a bright smile, and the young Demon just slowly nodded his head in response, "Yes, I do. There's no proper reason why he shouldn't. The issue here right now is the fact that he doesn't take to healing all that well." Eiro explained, slowly turning his eyes toward the quiet man sitting there.

With a wry smile and a cracking voice, he finally spoke for the first time, "Oh... So you don't want to treat me...? Because I'm meant to be dead, is that it? I get it, everyone is like that... just let me die already then..." He muttered quietly, and with a deep glare, Eiro stared down at him, noticing that Solomon's heart was speeding up immensely and his lips were wavering while his legs were shaking.

Once he noticed that, Eiro extended his wooden hand forward and grabbed the young man by the chin, pulling it upward so that he was looking into the Demon's face... or rather, onto his mask. Eiro simply didn't want him to keep looking down at the ground, "Hmm, I don't think people want you dead because you're not easy to heal, but because you're a little shit." The Demon said quite bluntly, and one of the remaining guards immediately took offense to Eiro's language. But before that guard could actually do anything, Solomon stopped him, wanting Eiro to continue.

"If all you do is act like this and bathe in your own agony, then how else should others react? What, you want others to believe in you if you can't even do that yourself? How important do you think you are? Everyone has issues. Sure, yours are a bit heavier than others', but that doesn't mean anything. They broke you down, so why should others risk ending up like you by making your issue theirs?" Eiro said clearly, obviously going a bit too far in his tone as he kept slightly squeezing the young man's chin to get some sort of reaction from him.

And luckily, that seemed to work out quite well, "What the fuck do you know?! How could you know how I feel?! Do you think I want to be like this? I just don't know what to do!" He yelled out angrily, and Eiro slowly let go of his chin and instead pushed his palm onto his face.

"Take a look at this. You think I replaced my hand with a wooden one for the heck of it? Seven years ago, all my children were kidnapped by Demons. While I was rescuing one of them, my finger was ripped off. Then, my hand lost all feeling. An old man saved me and gave me a new hand. You think throughout all of that, I was as insufferable as you are? That I would bite the hand that fed me like you are doing right now?" Eiro asked, running his hand over toward the back of the young man's head, forcing him to look at the King in front of them.

"Now look at all the bite-marks in your father. His ripped-up clothes because he prostrated himself while begging for help. His caved-in cheeks because he couldn't eat anything for days. The dark rings underneath his eyes that come from complete lack of sleep. He is a King, kid. You have someone to whom you are literally more important than the state of a whole country." The Demon said, "So act like it."

Finally, Eiro let go of the young man and slowly turned over toward Armodeus, "Sorry to ask this, but could I borrow some materials? The type of wood that you used for that healer's staff over there would be perfect." Eiro explained to the Elder Dwarf, who immediately frowned and shook his head.

"Sorry, I have three of those staffs, but not the raw materials. Although..." Armodeus replied, taking that one staff hanging on the wall before throwing it over toward Eiro, "You can use this. Free of charge, of course."

With a satisfied smile, Eiro nodded his head, "Thank you. And sorry for wasting your time with all this." The Demon said as he slowly ran his fingers over the surface of the wood. It wasn't made in a complicated manner, really. There wasn't anything about it that made it specifically a staff at least, so Eiro could pretty easily re-use this.

"Ah, I have tools right here if you need'em." Armodeus pointed out, but Eiro slowly shook his head and closed his hand around an invisible tool's handle and slightly pulled his hand backward, making a small carving knife appear out of thin air.

And this action itself was something that shocked everyone in this room. Abilities like this were more than just rare, after all.

'Who is this man..?' Solomon thought to himself, with Armodeus thinking something pretty similar at the same time. And that was before Eiro even started carving. With swift motions, the Demon got started, switching out his tools whenever necessary. He first got started on the leg, and as such created a dummy's foot, so it wasn't as detailed as a regular foot would be. That meant that it, for example, didn't have any separate toes, but instead was just meant to have the shape of a foot.

Then there was, of course, the joint that was meant to connect that foot with the actual leg, as well as the lower leg itself. Eiro tried to copy the rough shape that this young man's leg had as much as he could, although he made it a bit more muscular, albeit not by much.

Eiro was sure that once he had a proper leg, he would start walking again and the muscles of his left leg that had barely been used would strengthen again. Eiro simply didn't want it to look too different for the next year until Eiro may come and check on it again.

And just as he was roughly halfway done with the actual lower-leg, he slowly turned his eyes toward the side and groaned annoyedly.

With a concerned expression, Solomon stepped up toward him, looking at the piece of wood in Eiro's hand, "D-Did something go wrong?" He asked with pure worry in his voice, but Eiro simply shook his head.

"No, no, don't worry. I just noticed that they brought someone annoying with them." He replied, and Solomon turned toward his guards and Armodeus confusedly, before they heard a knock on the door.

"My King, we have returned!" The guard from before exclaimed, and Solomon looked at the door with a slight startle, "You may enter..." Solomon told them, and the Guard opened the door before a group of people came in, led by Nelli the Naiad.

"Eiro!" She exclaimed immediately, "Down there on the second layer there's this performer-"

"I know, we'll deal with that later. First, you and Clementine, take a look at that boy for a second. He has a rancid smell to him, I just need you two to confirm my guess."

"Of course..." Clementine said quietly, although she seemed obviously pretty hesitant to approach the boy for whatever reason. And while Eiro then continued carving the leg, he spoke to the others, "Behave yourselves, everyone, alright? And with 'Everyone', I mean you, Arc."

"Hey! What's that supposed to mean?" The boy asked annoyedly, and then looked at his siblings before shrugging, "Alright, fair enough."

Seeing that Arc wasn't really up to behaving, Sammy looked toward the King with a light smile, "Lord Skyhart, it is an honor to be able to stand in front of you like this. In advance, I already apologize for whatever my brother, as well as my father, may do or say throughout this night." She pointed out as she bowed to Solomon, who simply shook his head.

"Do not worry about such things. I'm not here as a King, but as a father. And as a father, Eiro is my benefactor." Solomon said with a slight laugh, and Eiro noticed Felix's whole existence currently being washed away by confusion.

"Hmm, these are the children Jura spoke of?" Armodeus muttered quietly, and Eiro slowly nodded his head, "Probably. You made some things for them, right? Could you bring them out and show them to them while I work?"

"Oh, of course!" The Elder Dwarf exclaimed, swiftly rushing to the room toward the back, while Avalin walked up to Eiro, "Daddy am I getting something too?"

"Hmm, what would you want?" The Demon asked, and Avalin placed her hand to her chin and looked up in thought about it, "Everything!" She exclaimed, but Eiro just slightly smiled and ran his hand through her hair with a laugh, "That's a little much, isn't it?"

"No!" She exclaimed immediately, "Everything is too little!" Avalin exclaimed with a huff, so Eiro slowly looked at her. "Then I'll get you everything and more when I'm done with work, alright?" He asked, and with an excited smile, Avalin nodded her head hurriedly.

"Yeesh!" She exclaimed, and then happily ran over toward Sammy, while Eiro finally finished the prosthetic leg and slowly started putting it together. And once he did, Armodeus already returned with some items as well as the second staff that he would give to Eiro for the arm, which the Demon happily took from him.

"Thanks. Nelli, Clementine, how does it look?" Eiro asked, as he slowly looked at the two of them, and Clementine turned toward him with a pale complexion, "Not great..." She pointed out, and Nelli seemed to agree to that as well.

"What were these wounds made with?" The spirit asked, and the Demon slightly shrugged, "They're assuming it's a card with similar properties to the Three of Swords. A teacher went on a rampage. But others could be healed, just not him."

"Hmm, then this might have been a targeted thing..." Nelli pointed out quietly, and Solomon ripped his eyes open immediately, "Targeted? What do you mean? My son was simply unlucky, and his limbs couldn't be healed through magic... It worked for others that lost their limbs, however."

"Sure, he's basically the opposite to Clementine when it comes to healing compatibility, but it's impossible to have so little compatibility that high-tier spells like that won't work. If that was the case, then the wounds wouldn't have closed either. A single papercut could take his life because he could bleed out." Nelli pointed out, "Spells like that often only take effect shortly after the limb was removed. Something was done to this child to prevent that. Something to counteract those healing attempts."

"Huh, so it really was that, huh?" Eiro asked with a deep sigh, and Solomon turned toward him confusedly, "What do you mean? You know the reason he can't be healed?"

Slowly nodding, Eiro got started on the parts for the arm, "My guess is a sort of curse. But if that's it, it wouldn't be just as strong anymore as it used to be. A curse like that must be pretty strong, but it's doesn't smell that strong." Eiro pointed out, and then slowly stood up and walked over toward Clementine, placing his hand onto her back, seeing that she was seemingly still feeling sick.

"Go on, take a look at what Armodeus made for you. If you need it, you can head outside for a few minutes, but take someone with you, alright?" The Demon told the girl, who just slowly nodded her head, "Thanks..." She replied, and Solomon looked at Clementine rather confused.

"Is she also capable of sensing curses like you?" He inquired, but Eiro just shook his head, "It's more complicated than that. I can explain it some other time. But first, let me finish everything and help your son." Eiro told Solomon, not wanting to reveal knowledge that he didn't necessarily need to know about.

And so, Eiro for now simply continued on carving into the staff to turn it into a prosthetic arm instead, once more simply creating three different major sections. The hand, the joint, and the actual arm.

Maybe two hours later, once everyone took a closer look at their new items and Solomon grew even more nervous than before, while his son just sat there still thinking about Eiro's words from before, the Demon finished and held the two prosthetics in his hands.

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