"Stay... still... already!" Eiro exclaimed loudly as he hunted a certain wooden doll through the forest. For a bit more than the past month, he's been trying to either beat the Puppet in a fight, catch it, or find it for the last Token's task, which was based on finding the Puppet while it was hiding in the forest in a random location each time.
He at the very least managed to analyze the Puppet's moves enough to be able to dodge for roughly five minutes before being beat by it in the Dagger Mastery's fight, and could hold on for a single minute for hand-to-hand combat. Luckily he learned the skill by now and managed to level it up a fair bit to reach a relatively high level in the Beginner Grade.
But the task that gave him the most pain was the Freerunning-related task. Sure, it was annoying and frustrating that he somehow wasn't even able to perceive the puppet in the last task, or that he wasn't able to beat it in the two combat mastery tasks, but somehow, the fact that he couldn't catch up to it annoyed Eiro way more.
It took paths along the forest that Eiro usually would be avoiding because of the troublesome terrain and moves through it like it's a flat path, runs up trees and rock walls like it's nothing, and ends up leaving Eiro behind. And worst of all, since he had been training his perception to find the puppet for the perception task, when it was actually making sound, he knew exactly where it was at all times, but Eiro still wasn't able to catch up to it and he didn't seem to find any sort of improvement throughout the whole past month that he's been training with the Puppet.
Sure, since he got the 'Freerunning' skill he's been able to handle his body a slight bit better when running through the forest, but the distance between himself and the puppet never got smaller.
Seeing that today once again he wouldn't be able to catch it, the Demon yelled out, "I give up!", which quickly made the Puppet stop and return to Eiro, who just looked at it annoyedly.
"You damned..." He muttered to himself, and then stood up straight while trying to get his breathing under control, "Come on, we're heading back home." Eiro told the Puppet and then turned around, slowly starting to make his way there, crushing the snow underneath his feet while he was at it. He had to get ready anyway, since he would be leaving for town again later tonight.
Once back at the house, the Demon could swiftly see the children practicing as well with the tasks that Eiro gave to them, while Avalin and Leon were just playing together like usual. Seeing that he returned, Sammy looked at him with a light smile, "So, any luck this time?" She asked, but the Demon just shook his head as he replaced the token in the Puppet's chest with the blank one to have it go into 'standby' mode for now, and then looked at the children.
"And what about you, how are you all doing?" The demon inquired, and they all just slightly shrugged in response, "Well, there's no major progress, really... Our skills went up a fair bit, like you said they would, so we can handle ourselves better, but..." Rudy pointed out, and Eiro just nodded his head in response.
"I know, don't worry. I asked Tom to try and get books about the Techniques that I was trying to teach you. I showed them to him when I was there a month ago, so he should have been able to get a grasp on it. I'll bring them back tomorrow so that we can get started properly." Eiro explained, and Arc nodded his head excitedly, "Yup, we're bringing them back with us." He exclaimed, and Eiro looked at him with his brows raised.
"We?" He asked, and Arc looked at him with a light smile, "Yeah, we. You promised you'd take me once I turned 15, right? To have me register at the Guild?" He said, and then, it popped back into the Demon's head.
"Oh, right... Sorry, a lot happened, so I didn't really have that in mind." Eiro admitted, and then nodded his head, "Alright, then start getting ready and maybe sleep a bit before we go. Because we won't have many chances to take breaks." The Imp explained, and Arc excitedly nodded his head.
"Alright!" He yelled out, and then swiftly made his way into the house to do what the Demon suggested, before Eiro lightly sighed and looked at the other children, "You all go ahead and end it here for the day as well." Eiro suggested, and they all swiftly did just like he said and made their way inside while Nelli floated to his side, wearing a slight frown on her face.
"You really want to take Arc to town now? With all those soldiers running around?" Nelli asked, and Eiro nodded his head in response, "Yeah, why not? It was all fine a month ago when I went there, and most of the Soldiers don't seem to be as idiotic as Rumia. So for now, everything should be fine? And Winter Solstice is coming in another week as well, so they should be careful about their actions for now." Eiro pointed out, and Nelli looked at him with a wry smile.
"I was more worried about Arc than the Soldiers, you know?" She said, and Eiro looked at her confusedly when she said that, "What do you mean? He's a fine boy, isn't he?"
"Of course, he's smart, handsome, tall for his age, and well-humored. But he doesn't know any restraint, because he himself isn't bothered by anything. So he might say something that upsets the soldiers..." Nelli pointed out, but Eiro just shook his head in response.
"Don't worry, I'm sure it's going to be fine. We'll speak to him about it, and then everything should work out just fine."
With those words in mind, despite Nelli not being quite sure if talking to him about it would be enough, the Demon got started on getting everything ready for the trip while taking the fact that Arc would be riding on Lugo's back as well into account. The Stag himself seemed a bit annoyed at having to carry two people at once, but after Eiro did his best to absolutely peacefully convince him, Lugo stopped complaining and let the boy onto his back when it was time for him and Eiro to leave.
Although before Eiro himself got on Lugo's back as well, he looked over at Rudy, who was closest to him right now, "If anything happens, like a monster or person coming near here, put the Dagger Mastery token into the Puppet. It has that old dagger right next to him for that. It should be able to defend you guys if it comes down to it."
With a slow nod, Rudy replied, "Sure. We'll do that. But don't worry, nothing will happen to us." The boy replied, so Eiro just smiled at him lightly nervously, "Alright. Then make sure to practice properly, we'll be back tomorrow night." Eiro told him, and Rudy simply smiled back at him.
"Have a safe trip. See you tomorrow." He responded, so Eiro just told Lugo to start moving and then waved at Rudy as they were leaving.
And just a couple minutes later, Arc looked at Eiro curiously, "So, what are we doing on our way?" Arc asked, but Eiro raised his brows and turned around toward the boy with a light frown, "I usually just read... There's not much we can really do, you know?" Eiro pointed out, and Arc looked at him surprised.
"What, we're just doing nothing the whole time?"
"I just said I read, didn't I?" The Demon replied with a light laugh, and Arc just groaned out loudly, "Fine... Then can you give me one of your books that you're not reading right now?"
With a slow nod, the Demon held his hand outward, ready to pull any one of his few books out of his invisible bookshelf, "Sure, which do you want? Right now I'm reading 'Historic and Current Geography of the Continent', but I also have 'Advanced Theory of Spatial De- and construction', 'Limitless Growth of Plantlife', and 'Existentialism of Monsters'. You read the Limitless Growth one already, right?" Eiro asked, and Arc slowly nodded his head.
"Yup. It was pretty interesting actually, it spoke about the possibility of different plantlife growing to immeasurable extents through magic. For example an Apple could be as large as our house, or a Melon as large as a castle. There were also some parts about how it could stop famine in Arengard despite the drought and wars." Arc pointed out, "Overall, pretty interesting. Could you give me the Advanced Theory one? Spatial De- and construction... That was the theory where it speaks about how all matter is re-invented in some way, shape or form, and that none is ever lost or gained, right?" Arc asked, and Eiro nodded his head.
"Mhm, flipped through it a bit before, it's mainly analyzing how magic creates matter, and theorizing about how that influences our world in the long run." He explained as he pulled the book out of his Treasury and then handed it to the boy sitting behind him, who swiftly flipped it open.
"Sweet. I mean, it's magic, right? There's not necessarily a reason behind how it creates stuff. Right, Nelli?" Arc asked, and the Spirit swiftly appeared in front of him.
"I mean... I don't know about any of that stuff, I just make water. Like I turn the mana that I have into it, it's like coloring a piece of paper, kind of. In a weird way..." Nelli explained, before Eiro lightly chuckled.
"Great explanation." He said, and Nelli floated up in front of her contractor with a deep frown, "Hey, it's a better explanation than all those 'Analysts' saying that we pull the water out of another Realm, which we don't."
"Couldn't some Spirits just go ahead and tell that to those 'Analysts'?" Arc asked, and Nelli nodded her head, "I mean, I personally would, but like I already explained to Eiro plenty of times, Spi-"
"Quote, 'Spirits are asshats', quote end." The Demon interruped, and with a light laugh, Arc just flipped the book in his hands open and started to read, while Nelli disappeared back into the 'inbetween' space and kept pestering only Eiro about a whole bunch of stuff that he tried his best to ignore. She just wanted to annoy him, so he just wouldn't play along no matter what she did.
And so, that trip went on for the next roughly ten hours, and they soon reached town around sunrise, and Eiro swiftly pulled his mask out of his treasury, put the two books that he and Arc were reading back into it, and prepared to enter town. Although to his surprise, there was a guard stationed at the gate now, and it was one of the soldiers that Rumia brought with him, and he swiftly stopped the Demon from entering.
"You, Sir, have to report to Lord Argenson before entering town." The Soldier said, but Eiro just sighed in response and shook his head, "Yeah... No, I don't." He pointed out and just told Lugo to keep moving, although the Soldier then held his spear in front of the Stag.
"I... I said you have to report to Lord Argenson." The Soldier said nervously, and Eiro just frowned back at him.
"And I very clearly said that I don't have to, didn't I? You realize right now, I'm in a position of power toward him, and not the other way around, right? So go ahead and tell Rumia that he can report to me if he oh so dearly wants to speak to me." The Demon said with a deep glare, making the Soldier slowly lower the spear while Lugo made his way into town, and Arc just turned around toward the Soldier as they were leaving and broadly grinned at him, extending his hand to show him the middle-finger.
