Chapter 80 - It's been a while

"What...?" Eiro muttered quietly as the head of the statue suddenly hit the ground, slowly turning toward the man who was responsible for this.

And that person didn't stop at cutting off its head. No, he simply continued to cut into the wood over and over again, as splinters and chunks of wood flew around everywhere, nearly blocking the Demon's sight. Eiro would have been able to fix the issue with the head, but he couldn't get rid of all of this damage.

But... He just wanted to show this to Jura... "What the f.u.c.k do you think you're doing?!" Eiro screamed out, with pure anger in his voice, supported by Air Magic, causing his voice to echo throughout the whole forest as flocks of birds started to fly away in response, and the man in front of Eiro slowly turned around, the ugly, demonic mask staring back at the Imp, breathing heavily underneath. For some reason, it seemed like the man was incredibly, and purely angry at seeing

"We're taking care of a family of Demons that settled here, that's what." A Deep, brutish voice pointed out, and as Eiro turned his eyes to the side, he could see Krog the Warrior, and Jess the Mage, approach him slowly.

"I wasn't speaking to you." Eiro growled, and swiftly held his left hand forward with two fingers stretched forward, and then pulled them back as if pulling something off of a stack, before a golden card appeared in Eiro's hand, held between those two fingers and his thumb.

But that card soon disappeared again as three rings appeared around Eiro's three central fingers. It was a bit tough to handle this many for a long time, but he would be fine. He didn't want to drag this out too long anyway.

"The f.u.c.k?!" Krog yelled out, "A f.u.c.k.i.n.g Demon with a Card? Hah, what kinda-"

"I said I wasn't speaking to you." Eiro growled quietly as he just glared at the large man standing halfway up the hill now, his voice literally carried by cold, freezing wind, giving Krog and Jess deep chills.

"Now, first, I want you to tell me why you did that just now." Eiro said as he stared at the man in front of him, who just turned his head and slightly glared behind him at the cut-up wooden statue, while the door of the house opened up.

"Careful! There's more Demons coming out!" Jess yelled as she held her staff forward, seemingly preparing for an attack, although she wasn't the only one baffled when instead of a hideous monster, a good looking young woman with long red hair stood there in the doorframe, holding a sleepy young boy in her arms. "Wh-What's going on out here?" Sammy asked confused as she looked at the unfamiliar faces, and Eiro with his Card active, as the others from inside walked up behind her.

"You..." Krog started saying quietly, before he unsheathed the large sword he had been carrying on his back, holding it forward, "Are those the kids you were talking about?" Krog yelled out, seemingly starting to get quite pissed off, "You holding them hostage? Or kidnapped them? Huh f.u.c.ker, answer me!"

With Anger imprinted in his face, the warrior started running up the mountain, preparing to attack Eiro, but a certain one of the kids inside sprinted out as fast as he could. "Rudy, stop!" Sammy yelled after him, and Eiro turned around in surprise, just looking at the figure of the boy running up inbetween Eiro and Krog, stretching his hand out toward the blade.

"Kid, the f.u.c.k-" Krog yelled out, trying to avert the attack, but with the speed he was going at it was impossible. He pressed his eyes shut and tried his best, but soon enough he felt resistance. Krog was sure that it was the boy's hand being cut off, but then... The blade just stopped moving, and when he opened his eyes and saw the notification telling him about the damage that he did... He didn't know what was going on anymore.

"What did you just try to do?" Rudy asked, staring Krog down angrily, before the Warrior himself just looked back at him confused. "That's what I wanna know! If-If I didn't stop my attack that much, you'd be without your hand!" Krog yelled, completely misunderstanding what just happened.

"Rudy, get back inside." Eiro said, slowly turning back toward the man in front of him, who for some reason didn't take the moment that the Demon was distracted to attack.

"No, I won't." The boy replied, "I'm not fast, so I can't be used to distract people..." He said, slowly pushing the blade of the man in front of him to the side, "I'm not smart, so I can't come up with good tactics..." Now, Rudy slowly clapped his hands down in vertical motions to get rid of the flower that was still on them from baking bread, "And I'm not capable of doing damage, so I'm useless in a proper fight..."

And as Eiro looked to the side, he soon saw Rudy take a stable defensive stance, although he didn't know where exactly he learned that, as the boy just stared at the Warrior in front of him. "So at least let me do the one thing that I can do for you... And let me be your shield for now." Rudy said with determination in his eyes, and Eiro just slightly stared at his back.

He knew that Rudy couldn't take any damage, or be wounded in any way at all, but he was still scared that somehow that ability would just stop working all of a sudden. But... "Rudy..." Eiro started, "If you lose even a single point of Health, you're replacing Lugo as a pack-mule next time I go to town." The Imp said, and with a slight chuckle, the boy nodded his head. "Sounds fair."

"Hah... Hahahah! You... You really want to defend a f.u.c.k.i.n.g demon? Are you retarded, kid?" Krog asked, completely taken aback by this situation, and Rudy just laughed back at him, "That's kinda mean, isn't it? I'm just trying to be a good son here." The boy said, and Krog just clicked his tongue, "I see, so you're too far gone, huh? Sorry 'bout this, kid, we'll get you a good healer..." Krog said, and immediately swung the flat side of his sword again the side of Rudy's body, and waited for the damage notification to appear.

"Huh?" Krog muttered, and repeated the same kind of attack, even choosing the same spot, but once more, the same message appeared, "The hell is going on?" Krog asked, and then started to genuinely try to attack Rudy, but no matter what he tried to do, all the notifications that Krog saw said '0', without a single exception.

"What the f.u.c.k are you?!" He finally yelled out, and Jess, who was completely overwhelmed by anything and everything that was going on, spoke up as she was grasping her staff, "Wh-What do you mean? What's wrong?" She asked, and Krog slowly turned around toward her, "He...He ain't taking a single point of damage..."

"What, how is that even possible?!"

"I don't f.u.c.k.i.n.g know! Just help me out, maybe magic will do something!"

"B-But... he's just a kid!" Jess protested, but soon took a step back in surprise as she saw Krog's glare.

In the meantime, Eiro had already turned back toward the man in front of him, whose name or purpose was still unknown to him.

"Now, will you finally answer me? Answer me and tell me why you just did that?" Eiro asked, as the blades of his Card were floating around closer toward him, and the man just shook his head and held his dagger forward toward Eiro, while the Demon himself just sighed. "Fine, then just die..." The Imp muttered, and then slowly held his hand forward, causing a small dagger to appear, while the man in front of him suddenly stopped and tensed up as he saw it.

"What..." The man said, finally speaking, an action seemingly even surprising Krog and Jess, "What are you doing with that dagger? Where did you get that?" The man asked, his remaining arm suddenly starting to shake, but not out of fear like Eiro would have preferred, but instead out of pure and utter anger.

"Ah, so that's why you had this statue… He gave that dagger to you, didn't he?" Slowly taking some steps forward toward Eiro, the man kept questioning where the blade came from, although it didn't matter much to Eiro as he just frowned and made the dagger connect with the middle one of the three threads and started to heat up while the other two started to give off cold mist.

And soon, with a swift motion of grasping his hand into a fist, the blades started to move around quite swiftly and Eiro steered them toward the man in front of him as he dodged the incoming attack and slashed the blades along the side of his arm, immediately cutting into the man's flesh.

These blades were as sharp as they could be, after all. But the man simply continued on sprinting forward and tried to slash at Eiro, but he stepped away to the side and continued dodging, while causing small cuts' worth of damage to the man in front of him, although he wasn't really paying attention to the damage notifications too much. If he had, this might have ended a bit quicker, since Eiro would have been able to properly understand the situation. He checked for the actual damage, but not for the name that appeared with the damage.

He was able to dodge, but just barely, so he couldn't afford to get c.o.c.ky like that. And so, the continuos damage that was inflicted on the man in front of Eiro continued, while he himself wasn't attacked more than a few times, and he was able to avoid major damage by pulling his Life Force away from the places he was being attacked at in the last moment.

The pain that followed afterward anyway was pretty annoying, but at least he didn't take too much actual Damage to his health.

"Give me that f.u.c.k.i.n.g Dagger!" The man yelled out with anger in his voice, and Eiro looked at him while clicking his tongue, "Sorry, can't do that. Also, dead men don't have a use for… weapons." Eiro growled in response as he dodged some more of this man's attacks, and then the man just stopped moving, giving Eiro the chance to calm down and think for a moment as well, and with that finally saw the name that was written on the notifications.

"If you won't give it to me, then fine… Then I'll take what's important to you!" The man yelled out, and instead of going for Eiro started to sprint toward the door that Sammy had luckily closed shut in response to what was going on out here to protect the children, but in the short moment of Eiro's confusion, the man managed to make his way to the door and ripped it open.

"Ah… Doing that won't bring Avalin back either." Eiro said quietly as he stared at the back of the man, who slowly tensed up and turned around. "What did you just say?" The man asked, slowly turning around toward Eiro, "How do you know that name?"

"How could I not? I named my Daughter after her." Eiro said in a clear voice, slowly approaching the man as he was just standing there as if in shock. "Wait, no, you… you're not…" The man said, and Eiro shook his head.

"Yeah, I'm not. I'm not the purely moronic Lesser Imp from back then, who sprinted into your arms after getting scared by his own notifications." With a slight growl, Eiro made the threads from the card twist around each other to become thicker as the Dagger disconnected from the middle one, and Eiro just held it in his right hand, and he just immediately slung the thread around the confused man's throat, making the the blades rip off the mask on his face, revealing the scarred face of a Light Elf.

"Long time no see, James."