Demon's Virtue

James stared at the man towering over him, not sure what was going on. It was Shimour, standing there with his arms crossed. Not to mention, his expression was clearly annoyed.

"Uhm... is everything okay?" James asked, not sure exactly how to react. The house was filled to the brim with Masters at this point so the idea somehow lost value to him a bit, especially after literally going to hell and back the other day. But even so, the vibe that Shimour was giving off was incredibly intimidating, to say the least.

Shimour clicked his tongue, looking at something behind James, "Your name's James, right? Couldn't you be a little more... perceptive?"

"I... huh?" James asked, not entirely sure what he meant, when another voice entered the conversation.

"It sounds like you wanted me to be spotted," Eiro pointed out, and James flinched as he turned around.

"You- Eiro, what are you- How long have you been there?"

Eiro shrugged, "Twenty minutes?"

"Excuse me?"

"Okay, maybe it was twenty-two."

Still not sure what exactly the demon was talking about, James narrowed his eyes, "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Don't worry about it," Shimour replied, starting to walk off as James was left confused. Eiro quickly explained it to him.

"He asked to see my stealth technique, so I was following you around pretty closely. Just with physical techniques, not by suppressing my presence."

"Wait, but I... why did nobody else tell me? I was talking to Krog and Jess for like five minutes earlier," letting out a long sigh, James let out a long breath, and Eiro shook his head.

"I was hiding from everyone else too. But I had to stick as close to you as possible and follow you around specifically."

"... That's kind of creepy, isn't it?"

Eiro shrugged, "I guess so. But really, what difference does it make? I can sense everything that's going on in this house anyway."

After thinking about it for a moment, James shook his head, "No, it's definitely extremely different... but I get it. Also, if I had been doing something I didn't want you to know about, or entered one of your 'blank spaces', then I doubt you'd have kept following me, so I guess it's not that bad," he let out a long sigh as Eiro raised his brows.

"Of course not. I do respect your privacy. You specifically told me how important it was to you that I didn't watch you all the time," the demon replied, as his ear perked up slightly, "Anyway, I've got to go. Shimour wants to continue. Oh, and you mentioned something about checking up on the main body earlier...

the door is locked right now so that the arcane magic doesn't leak out, but just call out to one of the duplicates if you want to take a look and we'll open it up for you."

James scratched the back of his neck awkwardly, "Oh, yeah... thanks, I'll do that. Good luck with that guy, he looks strict."

The Stealth-skill duplicate smiled with a quick nod, "He's a lot more easy-going than he looks, actually. But thanks, anyway."

A baffled James was left on his own as Eiro made his way back outside where Shimour was waiting for him, apparently annoyed over something. Though, Eiro could somewhat tell what exactly he was annoyed about. Shimour completely expected, and wanted, Eiro to be caught. Rather, he was actively working against Eiro while he was following James around.

Using his own stealth abilities, Shimour moved around objects, guided around the different inhabitants of the manor into places that would make it much harder for Eiro, and once even actively tried to get James to turn around to look at the demon behind him. To an extent, this was of course just to make things a bit harder for Eiro.

Getting him to the point of failure was, of course, the best way to see the limits of Eiro's abilities. And now, Shimour wasn't able to see those yet, so he would have to try and figure out something else. Though, somewhere in there, a bit of pettiness was mixed in as well, as if he just kind of wanted Eiro to be spotted.

"Alright, let's move on. If I'm going to be totally honest, your physical movements are... almost perfect. There's a little room for improvement, but they're small things that you will simply adjust over time," Shimour sighed, as if he was still a bit annoyed, "You said you can adjust your musculature based on others, right?"

Eiro quickly nodded, "Yes, I assume it's an ability that comes from a combination of my powerful senses and the world's abilities. I can hear the flow of blood and see the twitching of their muscles. The way they move, how much air they push away, the exact force they exert.

If I spent some time doing so, I could probably train myself in ways to attain that exact physique anyway, but that would take time and would be much less efficient. With my 'physical absorption', my body just reconstitutes itself. If I go overboard, it does overwrite some of my older adaptions, but I luckily also have a mind that can't forget anything.

I can just view the memories again and change my body based on those."

Shimour nodded along with Eiro's explanation, "It even works with memories, huh? Interesting... well, either way, don't rely on that too often. Obviously, my body will develop muscles differently to yours, so if you copy the exact strength and configuration of my muscles, it's going to be inefficient for your body.

It seems like you can already adjust to that pretty well, but abilities like that always have their limits."

Eiro slowly nodded, "I see. In that case, I'll speed up the pace at which this body's musculature adjusts to my actions."

"Right, do that... wait, huh? What do you mean?"

"Well, this is an artificially created body. Sure, for big changes, I need to be in contact with the main body or the main body's proxy, but small changes like that can be done by myself from here," Eiro explained, "Actually, all of the duplicates are decently weakened right now."

"...And why is that?"

"Because of the 'Ultimate Agility' card that I took in," the demon explained, while Shimour just raised his brows in realization.

"Right – with the stats your body already has, it sounds pretty rough to deal with," the master pointed out curiously, "So you can weaken your stats?"

"To a degree. I can't meddle with my brain too much if I want to function properly, so mental stats are a no-go, but physical stats can be changed pretty easily. Though, it's less of a change of the actual stat, but the stat values. I'm basically weakening all the physical parts that are affected by my stats to the needed point," Eiro explained, and Shimour quietly nodded along, until he got an idea.

"Alright... in that case, how low can you go? Can you drop your physical stats to below hundred?"

The Demon raised his brow, "Sure, that shouldn't be too hard. It's probably easier if I completely reconstitute myself into a previous evolution, though."

"Perfect. I've seen what your body can do, so now, I want to see what your perception-manipulation can do. If you can change your physical stats to as low as you can, then it's a sort of pure look at that side of things. Similar to how I could see your purely physical technique just now," Shimour pointed out, and Eiro let out a long, loud sigh.

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"Fine. As low as possible, then?" the demon asked, and Shimour immediately nodded his head, "As low as possible."

With a click of his tongue, Eiro unfolded his wings and flew up to one of the second-story windows, quickly making his way inside. He reached the bedroom in just a few moments, but the way back took far, far, far longer. Especially because he didn't want to be seen.

Though this body now had abysmal perception, he still had his passive perception from all the other duplicates walking through the manor, so he could navigate well enough without being seen, and soon stepped back out into the gardens.

Shimour seemed incredibly taken aback as he looked down at Eiro, who had shrunken down to less than half his former height.

"What the... are you... Eiro?"

"Yes," the demon replied in a voice that sounded like someone scratched their nails on a chalkboard, "This is my body from when I was just born," he explained, slowly looking down at his ugly, shriveled imp body, barely hidden through a set of ill-fitting clothes.