Chapter 289 - The Ghost

Eiro looked around inside of the exhibit and tried to find the place that would hopefully turn out to be the conductor for this magical storm outside. Of course, James also tried to help him find the right plant, and quite soon, the two of them managed to narrow it down to a specific part of the exhibit.

The Demon tried to step through the glass door to that part, but he was swiftly stopped by one of the guards, "Sorry, but nobody may enter this area at the moment. There is a rather dangerous plant in there. The pollen it creates are highly poisonous."

"Hm, that so?" Eiro asked, and immediately tried to push his way through the door again. As the guard was much, much weaker than Eiro was, the Demon of course managed to get through the first door with ease, although the Guard still tried to hold Eiro off from stepping through the second door, "Please, did you not hear me, there are poisonous po-"

"I heard you, I just don't care. I have to get in there. Don't worry, I can use air magic to make sure that nothing happens to me." Eiro said bluntly, "But you two better stay behind. I can't promise that I can really stop the pollen from approaching either of you."

The Guard, seeing that Eiro had the royal brooch with him, had little choice but to let Eiro do as he wanted. And James understood that it might be a bit troublesome if he insisted on getting in there together with Eiro.

And so, the Demon made his way in there alone. He looked around this space, and soon noticed the pollen that the guard was talking about. But to Eiro's luck, he immediately noticed that they weren't just regular pollen, but rather that they were something fused together with magic.

The magic in question was the same sort of magic that was fused with the snowstorm outside, so Eiro knew that he was about to find the conductor in here. Although, he had to be a little bit more careful so that he wouldn't be randomly affected by this magic and suddenly forget everything that he still knew at this point.

With a deep sigh to get himself to concentrate, Eiro looked around the space to find the source of the pollen. There were plenty of flowers that they may heed from in here, after all. And so, the Demon walked around the room, closely inspecting every plant that it might have been.

'Eiro.' Sarius suddenly alerted the Demon, who slowly nodded his head, "I know." He whispered quietly, before he heard someone speak right behind him.

"Beautiful, aren't they?" A deep, weirdly cheerful voice pointed out from behind Eiro, who slowly turned around to look at him. He was in the end of his 30's, and had a broad smile on his face, something that Eiro didn't expect anyone that was standing in the center of a poisonous cloud of pollen to really have.

"Who are you?" Eiro asked blutnly, not playing around at all, and the man in front of him sighed slightly, "Really, you don't want to speak to me at least a little bit?" He asked, and Eiro immediately shook his head.

"Well, then I guess I should just tell you. You knew me as Bahlsen. Or Edward, I guess. And to be blunt, I'm the one that caused this whole thing in the first place." The man said bluntly. Eiro looked back at him with a deep frown. He was telling the truth, Eiro knew that much through his Knight of Pentacles.

"Since it seems like you truly do not remember me, let me fill you in. I was the former owner of that newest card of yours. It was the one thing that kept my two personas, Bahlsen the Investigator and Edward the Demi-Lich split up. But now that I have died and my spirit is only kept here on this plane due to this spell, that is no longer the case. I know all that happened. All the animosity that I had built up toward the Collector was freed now that I figured out that it was hatred for myself all along."

"Is there a reason why I should care for this? I can see that you're not a normal living being. Rather, you were created by magic. I do not care for what the dead have to say about my actions." Eiro replied swiftly, before he approached the one flower that he assumed to be the one creating these magically poisonous pollen.

"Of course there is a reason you should care for this." The spirit of Bahlsen explained, "You see, now that I was freed from this horrid way of living in the form of two selves, I realized a few things. For one, I understood my own worth quite well. And of course, I understood my own abilities quite well."

"But aren't you dead? You shouldn't have any abilities left to begin with."

With a light chuckle, the figure next to Eiro shook his head, "What a simple way of thinking. Quite unexpected for someone like you. Rather, due to the unnatural mixture of my Living and Undead nature, I managed to live on in this form. In the form of a Spirit. And you can be quite sure that I am still capable of many things that I was while I lived, and much, much more." The man grinned broadly, but Eiro really didn't care. He knew that he was telling the truth, but this wasn't Eiro's focus at the moment. The thing that he had to do was figure out what the conductor was and somehow destroy it.

Just as he thought about that, Eiro's eyes landed on a certain flower. It was quite large and bulbous, as if it was containing something within itself. And most importantly, it had the largest amount of magic power inside of it of all these flowers, and these magic pollen were rather obviously flowing out of it, which was the most important aspect of this.

And so, without hesitation, Eiro placed his palm onto it, trying to properly sense what this was all about. But the moment he did, and the moment that he realized what was going on with this large flower, the Demon pulled his arm back reflexively.

Not because he was hurt, or was about to be hurt, but rather because of what he sensed to be inside of the flower. Quite bluntly, it was not a flower.

"You see... My late wife was a Florist. And this sort of flower was her favorite. We even named her after it. You see, while my undead half, Edward, tried to control life to the fullest so that he was not to be controlled, he despised it with his very being, trying not to engage with anything life-related. As such, the knowledge that I picked up from my wife stayed with my living half, Bahlsen. Both of these halves searched for a form of fulfillment. One was eagerly searching for a way to control life itself, while the other was eagerly searching for that which had taken its own life from him. As a father yourself, I'm sure you must understand." The Spirit behind Eiro pointed out, and the Demon slowly understood what he was on about.

"And so, you did both? You used your abilities of controlling life, in order to create a new one that was taken from you?" Eiro asked, trying his best to suppress a deep growl. Of course, his anger was mixed with that of Sarius that the Demon was fused with. Since both of them had rather extreme anger-issues, it was hard for them to calm down instead of strengthening each others' emotions even more.

And so, Eiro tried to take a deep breath, which was hard since he was trying his best to keep the pollen away from him with air magic. At the same time, this was most likely the main reason why Eiro hadn't been able to figure out what exactly was hidden inside of that giant flower-bud, which was about a meter in size, before touching it. With the ability or chance to properly breath, Eiro would have definitely figured out what was in there the moment he stepped into the room, if not earlier.

"And why did you turn it into the conductor for this sick spell?" 

"It was simple! Due to the mass amount of magic flowing through that nubile body, it was the one and only perfect choice. It is truly as if the storm and the 'conductor' as you call it are fueling each other. As long as one exists, the other cannot cease to do so." The ghost said quite bluntly, and Eiro just looked at the flower beside him as Bahlsen, or Edward, or whoever this being no was, continued to speak, "The moment I realized the truth behind your being, the complete and utter truth, I created the 'conductor' for the spell, and fused it into the small seed that was to turn into this fine specimen."

"You're disgusting." Eiro said bluntly, slowly approaching the flower behind him. For some reason, this ghost wasn't reacting at all, although it was obvious what Eiro was trying to do right now. He pulled out his dagger and cut through the flower's stem. Due to its disgusting nature, it was still being supplied with life and didn't die off right away, which actually was pretty good for Eiro in this situation. This way, he could try and figure out how to properly full dispel the spell on this flower while halting the storm.

The thing that worried Eiro most right now, however, was that the ghost was simply letting him do whatever he wanted. He wasn't trying to stop him in the slightest, as if he had already anticipated this. It was nothing but a favor to Eiro in the end, since he did not have to bother with fighting or convincing this ghost, but it was still quite unnerving. Maybe it was just the fact that Eiro had already forgotten about who the ghost was supposed to be, however. He had mentioned it a few times, but it was as if this information just slipped out of Eiro's mind the moment he became a bit agitated over this, which happened extremely quickly. As such, the knowledge on this man left Eiro just as quickly as he got mad, causing his anger to disappear.

And so, without even an ounce of knowledge about who this ghost was in reality, Eiro made his way out of this part of the floral exhibit, making sure that he was containing all the pollen this flower-bud was creating within a small bubble with the help of different kinds of magic.