"So it really was you..." Jess muttered quietly as she looked at Eiro, and the Demon slowly nodded his head in response, "Mhm. Seems like you guys are doing pretty well, huh?" Eiro pointed out, and Krog just stared at him with a deep glare.
"What do you want? You here in this town to finish us off? We heard what happened back then during the Autumn Equinox." Krog basically growled. Eiro slowly shook his head, "That's not why I'm here. It's a coincidence, really. I had no idea this is where you lived."
"Not gonna react to the equinox comment, eh?" The large warrior noticed, in response to which Eiro simply shrugged, "Why should I? I did nothing wrong back then."
"You- You did nothing wrong?!" Jess exclaimed loudly, and then lowered her voice when she noticed some other adventurers were drawn to them through her loud voice, "You killed dozens of soldiers from the Holy Kingdom... as well as a noble from there... And you call that 'nothing'?"
"Hey, I didn't say that I didn't do anything at all. I'm just saying that I didn't do the wrong thing. Especially Rumia was not a good person. He wanted to drag the Ladies into this bullshit war with the Monster King, and I didn't want that to happen. Also, Rumia just really, really pissed me off." Eiro pointed out clearly, "So what? Should I feel sorry for killing them?"
"M-Maybe a little...?" Jess suggested, and Eiro slowly turned his head toward her, "Would they have felt bad killing me? I live for my family. To get stronger in order to be able to protect them. That's why I'm here now as well, so that I can get my children to attend the academy and get a good education. I will not hesitate to get rid of whoever threatens that." Eiro pointed out and folded his hands together on top of the table as he deeply glared at both Krog and Jess.
"That used to include you two, as well as James, you know?" He explained, and Krog raised his brows confusedly, "Used to?"
"Yes, 'used to'. You guys tried to kill me, because you thought I was like others of my kind. But you saw my family and I, and realized that I didn't brainwash them, and then left. You didn't tell anyone about me, and you seemed to have changed through meeting me as well. In my book, that makes you much more trustworthy than most beings I've met." Eiro explained, and Krog scoffed in response.
"So what? You wanna be part of our party now or something?"
"I was thinking we'd start with a bit of sparring and training to get you guys up to par, and then we'll see what happens next." Eiro said, "And of course... I'd like to have a word or two with James. Did he tell you anything about me after that?"
Rather confused and startled by what Eiro suggested, Jess thought about it for a little bit and then shook her head, "No, not... not really. But what do you mean, get us up to par? We're a B-Rank party... We're pretty strong."
"B-Rank party... That means you're all C-Rank adventurers?"
"Y-Yeah, so what?" Jess asked, and Eiro just shook his head, "Nothing, nothing. That is fairly strong, I think. C-Rank requests would be what... small groups of Orcs? That's nothing to scoff at."
"So why did you?" Krog asked, basically feeling insulted by Eiro's comments, and the Demon sighed deeply in response as he held his hand forward and snapped. All of a sudden, droplets of water formed out of thin air and gathered together to form Nelli's body, while dust was pulled together to form Gondos'.
"Because I can confidently say that I could beat you guys easily without even relying on both of these guys." Eiro explained. It seemed like Nelli and Gondos pulled the attention of a fair amount of the adventurers in here toward them, "Could you maybe not use us to prove a point next time?" Nelli asked the Demon, who just turned his eyes toward her with a light shrug, "Then stop being such good proof for my point."
"Spirits? How did you... How did you get two spirit contracts in a single year?" Jess asked, and Eiro just slowly stood up from the table and turned around, "Be here tomorrow at noon. We're getting one of the large training rooms in here so that I can show you what I mean. Tonight I'll be here to try and speak to James as well. I was told he's usually here to have a drink in the evening."
Krog quietly groaned and looked at Eiro's back, "Mhm. And we'll be here, so don't you dare be late."
With that, Eiro swiftly left the Adventurer's Guild building and quickly climbed on the back of the stag that was following him. It didn't take too long for them to reach the closest gate, and with that the outermost area of the capital town. There wasn't anyone around anymore, so both Nelli and Gondos looked at Eiro curiously, waiting for an explanation.
Nelli had been telling Gondos the story in the inbetween space while Eiro started speaking to Jess and Krog, so they were both pretty curious to figure out why exactly Eiro would all of a sudden want to party up with them. It didn't seem like something he would usually do, after all.
"I know what you want to ask, and the answer is simple. I nearly died before I even got to fight [The World]." Eiro said, "The only reason I survived was because [The Devil] appeared there. And then before that, during the fight with Enka. If Felix didn't manage to steal the earring, I never would have been able to kill him. I may be strong, and you two are an immense help, but you two are basically a part of me. The same with Lugo. We are one, and 'one' is not enough to beat every enemy." Eiro explained.
Nelli stayed silent for a few moments and then floated up in front of Eiro's face, "I see, that does make sense... But why those guys of all people? Especially James, he hates your guts, doesn't he?"
"That's exactly why I think he's worth trying to trust. He hates me, but still left without another word. He was angry because he thought I killed Avalin, and before then, he probably had a fair reason to hate monsters. Most people do, after all. Of course, that doesn't mean I'll let him trample all over me again, but James is the kind of person that would throw away their life for their friends. I think it's worth a try." The Demon explained.
"But before then, we need to take care of those slimes." He added.
"Speaking of, that warrior was surprisingly nice despite looking like an ass." Nelli pointed out, and Gondos reacted kind of surprised, "He looked 'like an ass'? I thought he seemed quite charming." Gondos pointed out.
"Charming? What kind of taste do you have?" Nelli replied with a wry smile. Gondos slightly shrugged, "He was quite strong, was he not? It is obvious that he worked hard and long to gain such a fine, strengthened body. A determined person like that can't be too bad, can they?"
"You're a muscle-freak, are you kidding me?" Nelli asked quietly, and Eiro just sighed and stretched his arm into his satchel to pull out the glass bottle with the slime core in it, "Anyway, we're heading off to find the swamp slimes. You said you can change other slimes' bodies into your own to an extent, right? If you need anything else, tell me now."
"Fuck you." The slime replied, and Eiro stared down at it with a deep glare, "Then I'll just kill those slimes without trying to save some of their bodies for you." Eiro pointed out and pushed the bottle back into the satchel, although the core quickly yelled something out.
"Wait, wait! Fine! You need to try'n somehow split off impurities from the slime, and then I can transform it into my body! But ya can't really do that with swamp slimes, can ya?"
"Nope, we can. We have Nelli and Gondos. Spirit refinement can do a lot, you know?" Eiro pointed out, "Also, don't make me regret giving you a body again, you hear?" The Demon said, and the slime scoffed in response.
"Yeah, yeah, I'll be your trusted vassal after ya give me a body, and all that shit. I mean, you freed me from my obsession for that piece of shit Hyjun, so I guess I owe ya one. And having someone like you protect me is a lot better than bein' out in the wild alone."
"You know I'll kill you if you become useless or annoy me too much, right?" The Demon pointed out, and the slime stayed silent for a while, "You got it, boss..." It replied, and Eiro just sighed annoyedly and kept riding Lugo toward the nearby gate so that they could move to the swamp that was supposed to be near the outskirts of town.
It didn't take too long for him to reach the gate and quickly make his way outside the town again, and the demon quickly searched for the swamp area. It didn't take too long, after all, it had a fairly unique scent to it usually.
Eiro stepped off Lugo's back and searched for nearby slimes while he had Nelli refine the muddy swampwater. Nelli and Gondos were actually working together for the first step to make it easier to get the mud out of the water so that Nelli could move on to the second refinement step.
Once the water was properly refined, Eiro quickly turned them into small bolts of ice so that he could easily shoot them at the swamp slimes. Eiro heard the bubbling sound of the slime's movement and could smell the scent of the slimes mixed into the scent of the swamp itself. It didn't take long until he found his way over toward a small group of slimes that were just oozing around the terrain, mixing in with the muddy ground.
And near to instantly, Eiro shot at the slime cores and pushed them out of the slimes' bodies with the help of the ice-bolts and immediately took control of the slime using water magic while both Nelli and Gondos quickly started the refining-process to turn it into 'pure' slime. Eiro picked up the slime cores themselves and put them into glass bottles that they couldn't dissolve and then moved on to the next slimes.
Within roughly an hour, Eiro finished up the request three times over, and could still sense slimes nearby.
