Demon's Virtue
chapter-385

"Eiro, just stop and tell me. What did he mean when he said 'bring her back to life'?" Ariella asked Eiro, following him as the Demon made his way outside into the gardens.

"Obviously we won't really bring her back to life, that's impossible. At least for us, it is. We're just going to make her seem alive, that's all." Eiro said bluntly, while the Nephilim behind him quickly grabbed his arm to make him stop.

"Just stop and explain it already. And why do you want me to give my Artifact to this 'Armodeus' guy?" She asked. Eiro stopped, turned around, and looked the Nephilim deep into her eyes, "Again, we want to make her seem alive. I gave Armodeus the information about artificial artifacts that I collected, so he's going to adapt that to your artifact and create an artificial version of it that we can use to help Hannah seem more alive. And on top of that, I'm going to give her a few special prosthetics that she can use as well. You can trust us, we just want to help."

"Oh really? You sure there's not some other reason behind it?" Ariella asked, and Eiro thought about it for a moment before shrugging, "I mean, she's also a pretty good test-subject for this kind of stuff in general. Armodeus can figure out how to make artificial artifacts, and I can test out how to make adaptive prosthetics. If I can figure out how to make a prosthetic voice-box for Hannah so that she can actually talk, I should be able to help out a bunch of new people."

Ariella seemed even more taken aback than before, "What... What really are you? Are you really a Demon?"

"Mostly." Eiro replied in a blunt tone, and quickly turned around. He finally reached his special 'orchard'. The Demon smiled a bit as he saw Hannah curiously look around in this hidden-away area of the gardens.

"You can look around a bit if you want." Eiro snapped his finger, making Nelli quickly appear, "Nelli, make sure she doesn't go toward the more dangerous saplings. That means Holy Energy, Fire, and Gravity. Alright?"

"You got it~!" The Naiad replied, and swiftly flew over toward the young, skeletal girl. It seemed like she tried to say something, or laugh even, but considering that she didn't have a voice box anymore, that was clearly impossible.

Once the young girl and the Naiad were a bit away, just playing around a bit, Ariella looked at Eiro curiously, "What is this place?"

With a smile on his face, Eiro looked around at the, so far, quite small trees growing here. Some had bark that was like rock, others had a glistering ice-like surface. Basically any magical element that Eiro had access to had its own tree here, slowly growing.

Of course, there were also 'personal' trees for the kids here, just in case anything was going to happen to them and they needed a prosthetic.

"Just something I need for work. Oh, and I don't mean teaching or adventuring. I'm a Prosthetist, I think I mentioned it to you before." Eiro quickly explained, and proceeded to take out a small glass bottle out of his satchel. He pulled out the cork and let the seed drop into the ground. It was quickly swallowed up by the dirt, before Eiro grabbed the bottle of liquid that Armodeus gave to him.

"If you want to watch, that's fine, but I would prefer it if you could head over and finally give Armodeus your artifact. What kind is it, anyway?" Eiro inquired. Ariella looked at Eiro nervously, and finally pushed her hand into her cleavage, pulling out a small amulet hanging around her neck.

"It belonged to my father. He used it to disguise himself as a human, and then met my mother. Ever since then, I've used it myself." Ariella explained. Eiro took a look at the amulet, trying to analyze it properly, "Hm, alright then. It does work with others besides just angels, or angel-descendants, right?"

"Yeah it does. It works with anyone with the intelligence to use it. So... Humanoids can turn into other humanoids, and beasts, if they happen to be smart enough, can turn into other beasts." Ariella explained, "And of course, it can easily hide things like wings or horns."

"Hm, alright then." Eiro pointed out, "Then it would definitely work well with the prosthetic I'll make."

"...Sure it will." The Nephilim replied, and Eiro quickly started to get to work. He poured out the bottle of especially liquified slime, and fused it into the seed using magic.

For now, Eiro just made sure to make the seed sprout, fusing the slime-liquid with it as much as he could. By pushing his will into his mana, Eiro was already able to change the small sapling to an extent. The wood could turn harder or softer, lighter or darker in color. It could even turn into slightly more flesh-like than normal.

Eiro took a deep breath, and after a few minutes of manipulating the seed further, it was ready for the next step, "Hannah, can you come over here for a second?" The Demon asked, before the young skeletal girl quickly came skipping over toward him.

"Could you place your hands onto this, and just pour your mana inside? Just as much as you can. I know you have quite a lot of it." The Demon pointed out, and the girl slowly nodded his head.

At the same moment, he stretched his hand out toward Nelli, who quickly fused to him. Eiro was able to see the flow of mana within this girl now.

"Like I thought." Eiro muttered as Nelli split off again, "She's really not a normal Undead in any way."

Ariella looked at Eiro, "What do you mean? What just happened?"

Eiro slowly crossed his arms as he looked the Nephilim into her eyes, "For one, she has 'Life Force'. If you don't know what that is, you could say it's basically an energy within us. Our 'Health'. It's like Mana, basically. Well, Undead don't have 'Health', they have something like... Durability, I guess. She does, and that comes from her Unique skill, I'd assume. She still has 'Life', even in 'Death'. But more than that, what's quite interesting, is that she's her own Necromancer."

"...Could you explain that a bit more?"

"So, Undead also don't have Mana. They usually don't even have souls. There are exceptions of course, like Lichs. They're rather rare, though. Undead are just artificially brought to life through Death Magic. The mana that usual undead mages use comes directly from their Necromancer. However, Hannah has her own mana, and a surreal amount of it, at that. It's twice what I have. And I've gone through multiple unique evolutions." Throughout Eiro's explanation, he made sure that Hannah was properly helping the sapling grow by pushing her mana inside, assisting in compressing it as much as possible so that Eiro could then use the mana together with Nature Magic to make it grow all at once.

Ariella looked down at Hannah, and soon squatted down next to her, "Is that so..?"

"Mhm, it is. Honestly, the fact that she had a status was weird enough in itself. Undead don't-"

"Have it, I get the gist of it now, yeah." The Nephilim replied, and Eiro slowly nodded his head in response, "Alright, then I don't have to repeat myself."

After a little while more, it seemed like Hannah had slowly exhausted a lot of her mana. Enough for Eiro to think it was fine to proceed for now.

He placed his hands onto the sapling, and manipulated Hannah's mana using his own, slowly letting the sapling absorb it as it grew larger and larger in size. Soon, it reached up to Eiro's hip, then his chest, and not much later, it was already towering over him.

It certainly had enough wood to make all the prosthetics that Eiro wanted to for Hannah. With one fell swoop, Eiro cut through the base of the log, and soon cleaned it up by removing small twigs and leaves. He just wanted the thicker branches and the main log itself. The rest was basically useless. Eiro wrapped his arms around the log and quickly picked it up.

"Now then, ladies, let's head back to Armodeus' workshop." The Demon suggested with a smile on his face, and the Nephilim and Undead girl quickly followed Eiro back toward the manor. Eiro carefully brought it back to the room that the elder Dwarf was waiting in.

"Ah, back already, I see? And with everythin' we'll need... Your magic really is quite convenient, ain't it?" Armodeus asked with a laugh, and Eiro quickly nodded her head, "I would say so at least, yes. Now, sorry that Ariella didn't give you her artifact, she's going to do so now. Isn't that right?"

The Nephilim nervously looked down at the amulet around her neck, and slowly nodded her head, "If it's really to help Hannah out, then sure..."

"Here we go, then." Eiro watched Ariella pass the artifact to Armodeus, who took a quick look at it.

"Just give me a bit of time, will ya? Might take a bit till I've figured this out."

"Of course, of course, I'm just going to work on parts for her arm for now. So that we can test this properly." The Demon suggested, and quickly cut off a piece of wood from the log by his side. And then, he started to carve it apart.