Just as he had planned out earlier, Eiro stood in front of the gate, after killing the two large Imps that had been stationed here as guards, and destroyed the gate without a moment's hesitation. The group swiftly stepped through, and Eiro had the Undead behind him hold off any Imps that were trying to attack them right now.
The only issue was that, right now, his necromancy wasn't powerful enough for him to make proper undead 'drones' yet. He was controlling most of them directly, giving them commands that his own mind and magic interpreted through their bodies. But they weren't acting on their own at all, they simply weren't capable of that. That meant that James, Jess, and Krog would have to go down there alone.
Luckily, he was able to convince Rashi to go down there and help them out, having her promise not to injure any people that she found and to only kill Imps. And then, Eiro looked at the creature that he had many of the Undead protect for the whole duration of this thing.
"Lugo, come on. You're with me this time." The Demon said, making his familiar walk through the crowd. He wanted to involve Lugo a lot more, but he simply wasn't strong enough to actually help out for now. But even so, Eiro wanted to expose him to this sort of combat more than before, so that he at least knew how to react in certain situations.
Eiro made his way through the castle, with only Lugo behind him, the Undead left behind to create a barrier to stop the Imps from attacking the rest of the party all at once.
"When we get in there, you know what to do, right? Stay behind me at all times, I will properly protect you. Alright?" The Demon said, "But I can only do that as long as you listen to what I say."
The Stag bellowed his response out, and Eiro rolled his eyes, "I didn't say that you're useless, I'm just saying that I don't know how strong this guy is going to be. I still want you around me, though."
Lugo stayed silent for a few moments, simply huffing air out of his nostrils while turning his head away annoyed, "Fine... If you listen to me properly, we'll work on leveling you up a bit, alright? The Monster Village must have gathered quite a few Nature Magic Stones by now. I know that you mostly only like to eat those." Eiro pointed out, and Lugo immediately turned his head back toward him. Lugo immediately started walking a bit faster to catch up to Eiro. And with what seemed like a happy grin, he let out a quiet bellow.
"Fine, fine. Although, I still don't know why you won't eat any others. You know how rare Nature Magic stones are. I know that you're also kind of fine with earth and water magic stones, so why don't you just try eating some more of those? There's plenty of water ones in the lake where the Lonely Naiad is right now." The Demon tried to explain to him, but Lugo didn't seem to want to hear it. Eiro tried feeding Lugo a few different magic stones, since that was seemingly the only way that the stag would be able to level up at all, but he was an incredibly picky eater.
Eiro didn't know if it had anything to do with the affinities that Lugo seemed to have for magic, since it would make sense for a stag to have a strong affinity to nature, but it was still kind of troublesome in Eiro's eyes. The fact that he couldn't bring Lugo along to more places really made him quite sad. He loved being around Lugo, after all.
"Alright, how about this... Every level you gain by eating Nature Magic stones, you eat one magic stone of my choice for another element. How does that sound?" Eiro asked with his brows raised, and Lugo slowly turned his head back toward him. Slowly, Lugo nodded his head, so Eiro extended his hand and rubbed Lugo's snout for a moment.
"Great, thanks, buddy." The Demon said with a smile. Luckily, he heard from Gobo that they had discovered a spot in the mines were particularly many nature magic stones could be found, so he had plenty of things to feed to Lugo once they went back there soon. At this point in the conversation, Eiro had already killed a few more Imps that thought approaching him was a good idea.
For now, he didn't really need to use Holy Energy, his normal attacks were fine. Some of their skulls just shattered into pieces the moment that Eiro hit them with one of his flat-handed attacks. Either they were incredibly weak, or the impact of Eiro's attacks was just stronger than he thought at first.
It didn't take long until they reached the place that the Imp-leader seemed to have turned into its home. Without any hestitation, Eiro kicked the door open, prepared for what he was going to see beyond it.
Men and women alike, chained up along the walls... some of them just children. As if they're trophies, although they certainly weren't just hanging there without being... used. That much was clear from the wounds on their bodies.
There were random treasures covering the insides of this room as well. Gold, gemstones, paintings, as if the Imp was trying to be a dragon or something. And the Imp in question was sitting there on the other side of the room, currently munching on an elven arm.
He was completely naked, so the blood that was covering him blended in really well with his skin. He was rather quite big as well, about five meters tall. Huge wings sprouted behind its back, and its tail was impressively large as well. It had seemingly also evolved into the same direction as Eiro's, now having a stinger at its end that was filled with surprisingly potent poison.
And to Eiro's surprise, something else happened that he didn't particularly expect, "Now, who might you be?"
This Imp was able to speak Common. He was probably taught it by whover put him in charge here.
"Just the guy that's going to kill you. You know, I really hate what you did with the place. It's disgusting, really." Eiro said bluntly, and the Imp sitting on its throne, which was really just a large pile of metal that had been molten together into the rough shape of a throne he could sit on, quickly replied, "I will take that as a compliment."
"It's really not. Anyway, should we get started? I want to get out of here before dawn." Eiro explained, and the Imp slowly stood up, throwing the half-eaten arm to the side, right next to the one it belonged to.
The Imp stood up, slowly approaching Eiro, "Too bad for you. I am strong. Super strong! So strong, I was the first Imp to ever evolve!"
"...Excuse me?" Eiro said with a wry smile. He already figured who exactly this one was. Surprisingly, it seemed to be the Imp that Eiro had so proudly punched back then. The one that had its wings sprouting out of its back. It was the first Imp that Eiro could remember evolving in any way, at least.
"You know you're not the first imp to 'ever' evolve, right? You were the first from our batch to evolve, sure, but we weren't the first Imps to ever exist." Eiro pointed out, and the huge Imp tilted its head to the side confused, as Eiro rolled his eyes. He spread out his wings and moved his tail in front of his body as he looked back at his opponent, "As you can see, I'm also an Imp. And different to you, I'm not a complete moron, so let me explain our history to you a little. You and I, we're not even real Imps. Real Imps, such as any other demon in fact, are born somewhere in hell. Imps usually come from the circle of Wrath, but y'know, there are exceptions. Imps are one of the oldest breed of Demons to exist, by the way. When the High Demonic God was first thrown to this world after trying to fight the other gods, creating a rift in space and time which created the underworld, he turned his own flesh into Fiends, Imps, and some other boring breeds. That makes every single Imp a descendant of the High Demonic God. But the two of us? Nah, we were created by the Monster King. Not even our souls are technically demonic. You look like your soul was taken from some kind of giant ape, by the way. Anyway, by far, you are not the first Imp to ever evolve." Eiro explained quite bluntly, and it seemed like the huge Imp in front of him wasn't really able to follow along for most of what Eiro was saying.
So, Eiro let out a deep sigh as he tried to explain it in simpler words, "You? Not a real Imp. Not first Imp to evolve. I? Also not a real Imp. Also not the first Imp to evolve. Although, each and every evolution of mine was unique, while yours were obviously just... normal. Sure, you evolved into quite a monster, but you know, you're nothing special. There's thousands of you in the underworld, as I heard." Eiro explained with a soft smile. This time, the Imp in front of him seemingly understood what he was saying, and angrily rushed at him.
Of course, Eiro had already taken out a Holy Energy magic stone and was more than ready to face him.
