Demon's Virtue
chapter-58

"I can contract a Spirit? I have not read about this before..." Eiro slowly replied with a frown, and Nelli nodded her head smugly. "Hehe, of course not, there are few that actually met spirits that can be contracted! But with the great me, it will not be hard to find some~!"

"Now, now..." Jura interrupted the Naiad floating in the center of the table, "How about we speak about that later? We would first need to practice Magic in general. His Mana is quite unrefined, you see?" The old man pointed out, "First, he needs to complete my task. I am going to make you a temporary hand that you can use on your hunts, so just go outside now and wait for when I call you."

Pointing at the door with his fingers interlocked, the old man all of a sudden told the Imp to leave, despite his immense curiosity about numerous different things that they just spoke about. But he was aware that he had to listen to Jura, as he seemed quite whimsical and might change his opinion about teaching the Imp if he complained too much.

So, the young Demon made his way outside with a slight frown and soon saw the children sitting around together near the carriage, unsure of what they should do exactly. And the Imp as well, was quite unsure of what exactly he should try and use his time for.

There wasn't really much he could do without a hand, but Jura said he would make him a replacement for now, so the Imp figured that he should do something that didn't require his hand, and stepped into the Carriage to grab the small, heavy bag that he 'stole' from the Lord of Greed and then filled with numerous different things on his way out of the tower after killing him.

"Huh? What's that?" Clementine asked curiously as she saw the Imp approach them with it, and he just shrugged and sat down with it.

"A bag?" He replied, but the young girl looked at him with a frown and a slight pout. "That's not what I mean! What's inside of it?" She asked again, so Eiro just sat down in front of them and opened the bag up, before turning it upside down, immediately making numerous different coins, gems, and books flow out of it.

"This." Eiro pointed out, and the Children all just stared at all that was there in front of them confusedly. "H-How?" They asked, and the Imp just raised his eyebrows and explained. "This is a special bag I stole from the Lord of Greed. It can hold a lot of stuff. And I put that 'a lot of stuff' in here. But I just wanted the books right now."

As the young Demon was explaining this, he was starting to somewhat 'Sort' the contents of this pile into different 'types' to see if there was anything else useful here.

First, there were the books which the Imp wanted to go through. Then, there were different magic stones, or things that seemed similar to magic stones but were in weird shapes other than the round version that Eiro knew them as.

And the rest was just split up into Gems, and then the coins, the latter of which Eiro asked the children to help put into 'packs' with him so that they could use them more easily, although the children all seemed pretty impressed at such a large sum of money. The Imp wasn't really sure of the implication of this amount, so he wasn't as impressed, but he was aware that there were a lot of things that could be bought with this money, which was nice?

At the very least that's the only reason that Eiro could think of why one would be impressed with these small, shiny discs.

Either way, soon enough, Eiro and the children bundled all of the coins up, and then he placed those bundles back into the bag together with the gems, and just left the books and magic stones outside, although he put the latter into his regular bag so that he could grab them more easily.

"Now..." Eiro muttered quietly, before he grabbed one of the books right next to him and tried to read the title.

"Stories of the Afterlife..." He read out loud, and slowly flipped the book open to the first page, swiftly finding what kind of book this was. Apparently, it was the type that just spoke about something fake? But it seemed to the Imp as if there were some useful parts in here... So, he figured he should just read.

This book was about a Human who later got inflicted by undeath, soon commanding literal armies of them in wars against people or other monsters.

There were parts that confused Eiro, or references that he didn't understand, especially as he wasn't entirely sure what all of these different 'Undead' were, but the story gave him a rough idea, at the very least.

And so, Eiro finished this book quite swiftly, before he and the children were called in by Jura. The Imp just put the books into the carriage so that he knew where they were, and then followed the children inside, where Jura had apparently cooked something for everyone, although the form of that food was quite confusing to the Imp. It was just a bowl with steaming liquid inside?

It didn't seem like food to Eiro because there was nothing to chew, but at the very least it smelled good... So, the young Demon sat down on one of the chairs and slowly tried to spoon this 'Soup', as Jura called it, up, while the old man himself was trying to place a wooden hand on the Imp's stump.

"Careful, this might hurt a little." Jura then said all of a sudden, just before Eiro felt a painful stinging, pain which ran through his arm like a wave and made his whole body shake, although that changed quite soon as that feeling settled down.

[Your missing Hand was replaced by a <Prosthetic>]

With a slight sigh, Eiro pulled his new 'Hand' over in front of him and took a look at the wooden surface. He wasn't really able to move his fingers each on their own, and he didn't feel anything in them, but it seemed that at the very least he could form a fist. It was a weird feeling, but at the same time quite easy to get used to.

"Good. Now you should be able to hold that dagger of yours. Finish that soup and get out there so that we can eat something proper, now will you?" Jura asked, pointing his finger at the bag that Eiro had with him.

"Leave that 'Special Bag' here, will you? It's not going to help much if you can use trickery like that. And get clothed already!" The old man exclaimed, so the Imp quietly grumbled and nodded his head, placing the bag down on the table before standing up, while Jura threw a cloak at his face, although the young Demon had a quite important question right now.

"Why can't you go hunt? You are stronger than me." The Imp pointed out, and Jura raised his brows surprised. "Oh? Are you complaining?" He asked, but the Imp just kept staring at him silently while Jura started to chuckle.

"You need to know the forest, Eiro. Just go already, or else these children will go to bed hungrily."

With a grumble, Eiro stepped out of the door, and Jura yelled something after him that made the Imp feel even more annoyed.

"Ah, and before I forget, do not use either of your cards. I will know when you do." Quite surprised, Eiro turned around and tried to see if Jura was serious, but as there was nothing but a slight, honest smile on the old man's face, the Imp figured that this was actually what Jura wanted him to do, or rather not to do.

And so, Eiro stood there outside of the hut, unsure what exactly he was supposed to do. How was he supposed to find food like this? The only things he saw were small animals around here... But at the very least, he could go and gather some edible plants, right? He remembered the plants that he read about in that one book pretty well, so if he just properly tried to think about where he saw those, if he did, then it might work out somewhat.

Although, just now, he noticed that he didn't actually properly remember the specific contents of that book about plants he read. It was still in the Carriage, so he could just take it with him and flip through it on his way. But then again... That seemed maybe not like a perfect idea, because the book was pretty large and heavy, so it would be annoying to carry around in his bag if he had to gather other things.

Instead, Eiro came up with a different way. He swiftly rushed to the carriage and grabbed the book, swiftly squatting down inside of the carriage as he went to take a look at the first page.

Eiro was aware that the memories he went back and 'Visited' with his ability were in his mind as if he just experienced them for quite a long time. Even now, he could still feel the lips of the Lonely Naiad on his own, as if they were still pressed against each other.

So, the Imp tried to look at each and every part of this book as closely as he could, taking in the littlest detail that he could find before moving onto the next page.

The moment that the Imp reached the last page, he closed the book down at the same time as his eyes, before starting to slowly remember the first page.

And then the second, and then the third. Just like that, the Imp managed to mentally go through the content of this book far quicker than the first time he read it, while probably remembering it for a far longer time.

With a smirk on his face, Eiro then stepped down the hill into the thick forest below all the whilst going through the contents of the book again and again in his mind, until something peculiar happened.

He saw a small patch of flowers that he usually wouldn't have really taken any notice of, and couldn't help but mumble to himself as he did so. "Papaver Somniferum, or 'Poppy'... The seeds can be used for... bread... or Opium, a pain reliever..." He muttered quietly, trying to arrange his thoughts into a manner that he could properly give words to them as he squatted down in front of the small flower.

"A pain reliever, huh...?" Eiro whispered, "Could be useful for Clementine..." The young Demon added to what he himself said, and then quickly grabbed the dagger out of his bag and slowly tried to grasp it with this new wooden hand of his.

It was hard to do so, and the hand itself was moving slowly, or barely if at all in response to his intentions, but after a little while he managed to get a tight grip on the handle... At least that's what he thought at first, but when he twisted his hand a little, the blade just slipped out inbetween his fingers.

With a sigh, Eiro picked the blade back up and placed it into his wooden hand again, before using a strip of cloth that was leftover from his old cloak to bind it to his hand to make sure it wouldn't fall out anymore.

And then, the Imp just tried to cut through the stems of the flowers, soon managing to do so, although this action seemed to be connected to a fair amount of pain around the end of his arm, something that he thought to be rather annoying. It didn't actually 'Damage' him, but it still hurt, which was annoying.

For now, Eiro just swiftly wrapped the heads of the flowers in some cloth and put them into his bag, before continuing to walk through this forest.