Eiro landed in front of the rest of the group again. He had been gone for a little while, and the people that he had brought with him were clearly rather nervous about him possibly not returning. The fact that Bavet was sitting there, smug as always, acting like he was a king, of course didn't help their nervousness either.
"Alright, we're ready to go. Come on, strap the horses back onto the carriages." Eiro said, climbing onto his carriage somewhat exhausted. Everyone quickly did as told, although Bavet came over to him a bit worried, "You alright? You're... sweating a lot."
"I'm fine, don't worry." The Demon said with a light smile, "My body is just adjusting to a small change, that's all it is." He said, although he had to admit, it's been a while since he felt like this. He basically just wanted to take a nap, something that he would definitely try to do as soon as he could. Although... He first had to find a place to keep this island for now. It would attract quite a bit of attention no matter what Eiro did, so he had little choice but to just try and figure out a way to hide the floating island as he was moving it over to Skyhart.
During the trip back, instead of just relaxing, Eiro spent his time trying to figure out a good way to deal with everything, and once he actually saw the island in the distance, he actually figured out a rather decent way.
He held his hand forward and summoned water, spreading it thin to create a light mist around it. Then, he used ice magic to cool part of the air, and then used fire magic to heat another part of the air. Due to the temperature difference, the moisture in the air condensed into a thicker mist, or rather, a small cloud around his hand.
"That should be fine, I guess. Doing this shouldn't be too hard... I hope." The Demon muttered. He would just create a large-scale barrier around the whole island, mix the liquid from the Ace of Cups with as much water as he needed to cover every necessary spot, and then he could create a special cloud around the floating island that would hide it from others, until Eiro managed to figure out a way to convince Solomon that this was actually a great idea, and not some large-scale theft, "Urgh... That's going to be a fun conversation... I can already imagine it. 'Eiro, you can't just steal a full island from another country', and even if I go 'but it's legally ours' he's going to have something to complain about... These guys didn't even try to do anything about this for a good eight years..." The Demon groaned deeply, and he could soon see Bavet's arm stretch out from the carriage behind him all the way over to him. On that slime's, currently humanoid, hand, appeared a mouth.
"I don't think you need to worry that much." Bavet pointed out, "You know, while I was in there and... distracting the pope, I overheard some things... They were planning on destroying the bridges of that island to just get rid of it. We're basically doing them a favor..."
Eiro raised his brows and looked to the side, "That so? Interesting... Although, I doubt that would make much of a difference at the end of the day, right? It's not like they made any official announcements, so they might still complain a bit if we just show the island off freely for now."
"...You can also go the route of exposing the crimes and corruption of the Holy Empire against its people by conspiring with that murderous creature, you can just say that you wanted to help them fix their ways, and that would start by removing the thing that caused their downfall. You know, that kinda thing." Bavet explained, and Eiro chuckled as he shook his head, "No way, that's never going to work... right?"
"It's worth discussing with Solomon though, right?"
"You've got a point..." Eiro muttered, "Well, I guess you're right. If I need to, I'll just hide it somewhere in my land."
"You want to hide a huge island and ruined city in a mountainrange regularly traveled by random adventurers? Great idea." The slime pointed out, and Eiro just grumbled in response, "My mind is a bit foggy right now, alright? I'm just brainstorming. And it's not like there wouldn't be ways to hide it anyway... I mean... it's not like Skyhart is landlocked, we have access to the ocean in the north. If worse comes to worse and nothing else is a viable option, we'll just turn this flying island into a regular island. At least for a while. And before then, we need to see whether or not my plan actually works the way that I want it to... it's not like people often end up controlling the movement of a whole island like that."
"Excuse me? You did- you did what?" A confused voice asked as the owner of that voice looked back at Eiro, "Are you a complete idiot?" Solomon asked, and Eiro turned toward him with a loud groan, "Dude, shut the fuck up already and help out." He said, and the King of Skyhart quickly turned back into a pile of translucent slime.
"What, I'm just preparing you for that inevitable conversation you're going to have to hold!" Bavet exclaimed, while Eiro just rolled his eyes annoyed, unloading the carriages into a separate storage space exclusively for the things from Zaragon's chambers, "I think you should rather prepare by begging for your life. Or at least prepare by helping Kim carry that crate over there." The Demon said annoyed as he sorted everything a little bit while figuring out a way where nothing could happen to any of these items, although many of them were incredibly dangerous things. If something happened to these item in here or they were handled in the wrong way, then they might end up blowing up a part of this whole city.
"Fine, fine..." Bavet said, doing as Eiro told him, and soon the whole storage room was filled up with the right things. Eiro turned toward the group of young people that helped with the transportation of all these items with a smile on his face, "Thanks for your help. Let's head back to the others so that you can all rest up a little bit." He suggested, leading the group back toward the castle in the center of the town. As Eiro entered the storage room, he was once more met by the stares of James and Krog who were ready to attack any sort of intruder right this second.
"Again, it's me." The Demon said, and the two of them immediately relaxed, "Great, you're back. Did everything work out well?"
"Yeah, everything is fine. Don't worry." Eiro explained with a light smile, although both James and Krog were clearly incredibly concerned for him, "Are you sure? You're sweating a lot... I'm not sure if I've ever seen you sweat before." James pointed out, and Eiro rolled his eyes.
"Guys, I literally fused my soul with a gateway to another plane of existence, let me be a bit exhausted." Eiro walked through the room and dropped himself down on one of the empty chairs, as he leaned back a bit. Not that this particularly helped the worry his friends were feeling right now.
"You three, you're here, right? Is he telling the truth, is he going to be fine?" Jess asked nervously, approaching the group after overhearing this part of the conversation, and without being prompted by their contractor, Nelli, Gondos and Sarius appeared in the air in front of them all.
"Sure, just take my mana without even asking me..." Eiro groaned as he slowly closed his eyes, basically just wanting to sleep.
"Well..." Nelli said, looking at Eiro with a bit of worry in her eyes as well, "I'm pretty sure he's going to be fine, and just so much more stronger than before. This will definitely help his next evolution as well... Right now, Eiro is just... adjusting to some things."
"Yup, that spirit gateway as well as all that shit he found out when forming the contract with the world." Sarius added, and Krog slightly tilted his head, "But I thought Eiro was going to be 'The World'?"
"Well yeah, but a different kind." Bavet explained from behind him, and Nelli quickly continued, since he knew that Bavet would throw a few insults into his explanation.
"The contract that Eiro formed was with the world. This world. Our parent, or creator, basically. The god-like force, 'the world'. That one." Nelli pointed out, something that James and Krog quickly accepted, although Jess was still dealing with that information.
"Excuse me? Th-That's not a thing... That's just a myth, right? This world isn't actually a sentient being, right..?"
"I thought so as well, but sentience is complicated. They're not sentient all the time. Sometimes, they just exist without thought or ability to reason, and sometimes they take the time to actually think or talk to others. Like me, for example. Showed me some kinda 'vision' or something, both this time and last time I spoke to them. Just that those visions didn't come from them, but a being far, far above them in this galactic hierarchy." Eiro pointed out, "And by the way, before you worry, nobody can hear us. Ace of cups." The Demon said.
"...So what were those visions about?" Jess asked, and Eiro just shrugged, "Last time, I was shown some kind of different version of this world. Maybe a future version or something. The moon was shattered into pieces, no idea what it meant. And this time, I was shown some kinda puppet play, where the puppets were those mechanical dolls we fought. Anyway, long story short – the soul used to create me most likely came from the 'Sage'."
"...Right..."
