Demon's Virtue
chapter-304

"I personally also only heard rumors about it, I've never seen it myself. Or a Dragon in general. I've seen similar things, but ya can bet I would smugly brag about seeing a true Dragon!" Armodeus exclaimed, and Eiro looked back at him with a light smile on his face.

"Yeah, I've only seen illustrations or lesser dragons-variations before. Like ground-dragons, and I think I spotted a wyvern sometime before." The Demon pointed out. Armodeus looked back at him a bit surprised.

"A wyvern? When'd you see one of those?" With a curious expression, the elder dwarf stared at Eiro, but he just looked back with a wry smile, "I really don't know exactly... All of the direct memories I have in my head right now are unimportant ones, ones that I would never usually think of anyway, hence why they stayed behind."

"Well, at least they were good enough to keep yer personality intact, right?"

"...I wonder about that. I don't exactly know if I was any different to this. I just know that right now, everything feels kind of... numb, I guess." The Demon pointed out, "I know that I should care about getting my memories back, and I certainly do to an extent, but at the same time it feels just so... unnecessary. What if my memories won't change anything? The children are happy, and that makes me happy, happier than anything else I can think of at least. How dod I know that the memories that I'm going to get back are really more worth it than the time that I'm passing up on while I'm gone."

The Elder Dwarf let out a deep sigh, "Lad, do ya know the average lifespan of a Dwarf?"

"...I think maybe 150? But they can get up to 200 years old, right?"

"Aye, that's right. But me? I'm nearly 400 years old in a couple of years. At some point, the only thing that you'll have of your loved ones are memories, especially considering that I doubt your lifespan is anything near that of your children... If ya don't die in a fight, you'll outlive them, most certainly. It is a horrible concept, I know, but when the time comes, you will appreciate any sort of memory you can get. Seven years of memories are a treasure compared to a couple of weeks then, don't you think?"

"You have a point." Eiro replied, "I'll trust you with this, then. You're surely more experienced in this than I am."

"...Mhm. Eiro, the way that you were talkin' just now though... You're like the son to one of my closest friends, you're like family to me, even if I may disagree with some of the things you've done in the past. If you need an experienced shoulder to hang onto, you'll know where to find me."

The Demon looked back at Armodeus and smiled, "Of course, thank you. Now, let me unlock this door for a second..." Eiro turned his head toward the bookshelf in front of him, and although he had forgotten about it at this point, he was able to quickly figure out how to open this up without even fusing with one of the spirits to see the magic that has been used to hide this hidden door.

It opened up, and Eiro and Asmodeus stepped inside. Immediately, the Elder Dwarf took a quick step toward the edge and looked down onto the taxidermied Grandour with glee in his eyes. He walked down the steps and approached the glass box that the Grandour was kept in, looking at it excitedly.

But that's just when Eiro noticed something else happen with Armodeus' expression as the Elder Dwarf saw the slight reflection of one of the magic items lining the wall of this lower floor, that mostly acted as a trophy display, really. Armodeus was completely distracted, and turned his attention away from this rare sight that he had been so excited about until just moments before.

The Elder Dwarf approached the cabinet that stood there behind him now, looking at the different items that were laying inside of there. Armodeus opened the cabinet up and reached his hand out toward one of the items. It was a small, decorative mechanical egg as far as Eiro could tell. He knew that something was supposed to happen when activated with a specific pathphrase, so much was easy to figure out from the parts themselves, but as Eiro didn't know much about artificing, it was actually rather hard to figure out what was going to happen exactly. And since he didn't want to break something that could potentially be dangerous by force, he figured he should wait until he actually got to learning the Artifice skill.

"The Third eye of the snake, the last petal of the spider lily..." Armodeus whispered as he slowly twisted the egg around, as if trying to unscrew a part from it.

And the moment that he did so, the mechanical egg practically exploded outward into shards, all of which dropped down onto the ground. At first it seemed like the small item broke, but that really wasn't the case at all.

Before all of the parts even hit the ground, Eiro noticed that the parts were going to form something, an image on the ground. A magic circle.

The moment that it was properly formed, it started to glow a bit, and the light from the activation of the spell became brighter and brighter, so much so that Eiro was nearly blinded from it. Sure, with his senses, that wasn't that hard, but considering how hard Eiro practiced to not let his senses be overwhelmed ever since he received this ability, it would have been a bit embarrassing if he was randomly blinded like this.

Of course, at the same time, this speaks for the strength of the spell. It was as if a pillar of light was created that suddenly and rapidly stopped at the height of two meters.

Quite anxiously, Eiro assumed, Armodeus stretched his hand out into the blinding light. Somehow, Eiro couldn't really sense what was inside of that pillar of light. Nothing at all, it was as if sound was completely swallowed up by it, as if there was just an absence of space there somehow.

It was a feeling that Eiro was quite familiar with, considering that it was somehing he constantly sensed whenever he was in this building. It was Choromancy, powerful Space-Elemental Magic. It was somewhat different in feeling to all these rooms though.

Rather, it was more akin to what Eiro's Satchel felt like, considering that it was also an item that function with spatial-magic due to the special spatial-bag that Armodeus himself had integrated into it.

Slowly, the Elder-Dwarf pulled his hand back out again, and was holding a thick leather book in his hand. It was decorated in a way that was both intense and subtle. It would stick out amongst regular books, but when seen between others of its kind, it would seem rather unsuspecting. As if it was able to blend into those, at least.

"It's his..." Armodeus muttered, and at this point, Eiro just let out a deep sigh, "Alright, let me guess, you knew the former owner of this house, but you didn't expect to find all of these things here?"

"...You could say that. I was unsure if it was truly him or not. Sure, Choromancers are rare, but there are still a couple dozen of them in this world that are powerful enough to create something like this. As I didn't see him for maybe... Fifty or so years, I couldn't be sure that it was him. But now I'm sure... This was Achidmedis' mansion. A Master of his craft. Literally. Amongst the few mages that have ever managed to bring a magic skill to Master Grade, although he hid it from many others... He didn't want to receive the title of 'Archmage' as it was 'troublesome' according to him. He wanted to continue his research, play around, and live a life filled with adventure. Well, he certainly managed that..."

With a laugh on his face, Armodeus turned around and looked at the stuffed Grandour standing in the center of the room, before looking back down at the book he was now holding as the pillar of light disappeared and the shards of metal turned back into two halves of a mechanical egg.

Armodeus squatted down and grabbed those two halves, screwing them into each other again, before he threw it over toward Eiro without much hesitation.

"It's a useful item. I made the parts, and Achidmedis and Johann collaborated on creating the system. I should've known, these doors just reeked of that near-immortal bastard." Armodeus grinned broadly, and immediately began to explain the situation before Eiro could even ask, completely filled with nostalgia at this point, "I mean, most of us dabbled in Artificing. Even Jura did back then. Johann was obviously the best of us, as he Mastered that Skill, but Achidmedis wasn't half-bad either. He was taught by Johann in the first place, and he always had a rather unique way of going at it."

"Hm... They do seem a bit different to the few Artificed items that I remember seeing, I guess?" Eiro pointed out, and Armodeus immediately nodded, "Yup! Johann never cared for his own life, as it was close to impossible for him to lose it in the first place, so he could afford taking a lot of shortcuts in his work that ended up helping him out in the long-run. It's like he had crossed over a big hurdle in the field of Artificing, that could only be reached by putting yourself and everyone around you in immense danger! But after that hurdle in his research, it was like his work was even more stable than it usually would be! It's a bit chaotic, but ya know what that's like. You studied under Jura, after all."

Eiro smiled lightly as he listened to what the Elder Dwarf next to him was saying. He looked down at the mechanical egg that he could vaguely remember inspecting so many times before, but he never would have expected for it to have this sort of power.

"Hm, I'm pretty sure all of us had that sort of item at some point to protect something important to us." Armodeus pointed out, "For me it was a memento from my late master, for Achidmedis it was his grimoire, and... wait, no, I actually think Jura never really used it. He wasn't one to keep things for sentimental reasons anyway."

Eiro listened, but he was mostly focused on one important thing. What Armodeus just said. The book he was holding was a Grimoire of Choromancy.