Chapter 308 - Forgive, not forget

Once more, in his second attempt, Eiro kneeled in front of the urns of the two dead adventurers with the small black bead in his hand. James was standing by the wall, watching over the Demon and what he was doing.

And then, Eiro slowly pressed the magic stone against his chest, letting his mana flow through it and back into his heart so that it would spread throughout his whole being. The moment that the Death Magic hit Eiro's heart, he felt a light stinging, as he always did, before his body weakened and practically decayed due to this extreme infusion with an unnatural element that his body was supposed to reject. It was pretty painful in some parts of his body, even.

Either way, for now, Eiro had to concentrate properly. He could see two shifting clouds above the urns. The spirits of those two adventurers. Eiro slwoly extended his hand toward them, but didn't touch them this time around. As if trying to gain the trust of an animal by letting it smell him, he tried to get the spirits to approach him first.

And then, once the spirits seemed to pay attention to him properly, Eiro concentrated a bit of death magic in his throat, trying to repeat something that he did once before. It was a lot harder this time, though.

For one, it was hard for him to speak when he was infused with this magic in the first place. His throat felt coarse and dry, even if it was perfectly hydrated. It was itching so much that Eiro nearly thought that parts of it were just crumbling into pieces. And on top of that, the bit of his voice that he actually managed to get out was incredibly distorted, and seemingly quite unpleasant for others to listen to.

And now, he had to strengthen exactly that part some more. The Demon infused his voice with Death Magic. He ususally did something similar with Air Magic, to make his voice simply travel further, and he did it not too long ago with Fire Magic to make his voice carry more strength to even melt the snow falling around him.

And this time, he was infusing his voice with Death Magic so that he could converse with the dead. And for that, he did the same with his ears, trying to focus his senses on the two spirits in front of him while attempting to tune everything else out a little bit.

Eiro slowly stared at the shapeless forms of the two spirits and let out a meek voice, since that was all that he was able to bring forth at the moment, "I ask you... For the deaths that I caused, forgive me..." The Demon told them in a genuine tone. He was truthfully sorry for what he did, after all. He didn't mind killing others if they deserved it, but since Eiro was the one that caused a situation like that in the first place, he didn't think that these two young people really had any reason to die at his hands.

And of course, through the Knight of Pentacles, the , the Demon's genuine feelings could be properly conveyed to those around him. As such, he really didn't need any more words than what he just told them.

Slowly, the two spirits approached Eiro's hand, and soon wrapped themselves around it. Like snakes, these mist-like masses slithered over the Demon's arm. It was kind of like two pairs of hands were running along his body, with cold fingers just barely touching him to the point where it could very well just have been a gust of wind.

It made Eiro wonder just how often he had felt the chilling touch of the dead and simply confused it for the wind. Either way, one thing was for sure... With every single instance of Eiro realizing this touch anew, a wave of fear flooded through him. It was the thing that Eiro may very well fear the most out of any concept there was. Death.

It made him want to pull away again, to just run somewhere where he could feel safe from this, but Eiro couldn't just be such a coward in the face of those that he wronged. He took a deep breath to try and focus himself as the two spirits continued to slither up his arm, and soon reached his torso.

For a few moments, it was as if they were just searching around the Demon's body, and then, they made their choice for what they were going to do next. As if these ethereal hands suddenly became stronger, the two pairs of hands started to rip into the Demon.

One of the adventurers placed their hands around Eiro's throat, trying to strangle him to death. The other one was seemingly trying to rip into his face, pushing its fingers onto his cheek and into his mouth to try and rip away Eiro's jaw. The imprints of these invisible hands could even be seen by those around the Demon right now, and even James became a bit worried, although he was the one that Eiro was doing all this for in the first place.

Nonetheless, Eiro had to continue despite the dreadful touch of death coursing through him. He felt fear nearly overcome him a couple of times, but this was the whole reason that Eiro had even been practicing with this element so much over the last little while.

"I'm... sorry... But I cannot die here..." Eiro said in a clear tone, and suddenly, the two pairs of freezing hands stopped, "I know it is selfish... I was the one that caused your deaths, and now... I'm asking you to forgive me after what I did to you... But please, believe me... I wholly regret what I did to the two of you..." Eiro told the two spirits, and slowly, one of them let go of Eiro. Or at least, it loosened its grip on the Demon's throat.

The other one was continuing to rip into his face aggressively, however. It seemed like his words had only infuriated it even more. And at that point, something that Eiro really didn't anticipate happened, although he should have kept this in mind beforehand. Maybe the Death Magic was messing with his mind a bit, considering how much he had been damaged by it over the past few weeks. Or maybe... He just became conceited and thought everything would go over without a hitch.

But slowly, the spirit gained more strenght. The mist-like figure was strengthened and became more focused. At first, it was only the hands of the spirit, but it was slowly turning solid. Its pure grudge, its anger and hatred toward Eiro, the one that killed this person to begin with, caused it to turn into an undead.

It caused it to turn into a Vengeful Ghost. After the hands, its arms also became solid, clad in a pitch-black layer as its body was being formed. This continued a while longer, and with every small bit, the Ghost gained more strength. It burrowed its fingers into his cheek, trying to rip into the Demon's flesh... But of course, even though Eiro's body was weakened, he still had a Resistance stat of over 120. A newly-born Ghost would never be able to injure someone like that.

So, Eiro could continue on speaking while this spirit was letting out its anger on him. It seemed like the other one was reached by Eiro's words, however, and its anger was slowly disappearing.

"Please, forgive me." Eiro said in a quiet voice, but the slowly developing Ghost just continued on trying to injure him. 

At this point, even James was starting to get anxious. Over the past few days, he had noticed just how hard Eiro was working to earn his forgiveness for what he did. He was seeing how serious he was, how anxious even this demon was to truly make this happen. And different to what James had believed at the start, Eiro wasn't only doing this to make it up to the Light-Elf, but he was really doing it to apologize to these two that were simply caught up in what Eiro did.

And there was a reason why Eiro was so serious about these two in particular. They weren't the first innocent, undeserving people that Eiro killed in mindless slaughter. He wiped out most of a whole village in such a manner before.

But while Eiro had not been able to apologize to them, and most likely never will be able to, he could still do so with these two. They were the representatives for all the innocents that Eiro had slain in the past. As if they were a way for him to atone for this.

It might not seem quite so genuine from a man that would not hesitate to kill anyone that got into his way otherwise, though.

But even so, without a doubt, Eiro was serious. He was apologizing with his whole heart, and he wouldn't stop just because of the anger of this Ghost, whose furious face was slowly coming into existence now.

"Please, forgive me." The Demon repeated once more, staring deep into the eyes of the Ghost.

"Please, forgive me." He said, his voice digging deep into the Ghost's ears.

"Please, forgive me." But no matter how often Eiro said it, the Ghost was only becoming more angry. For a good while, at least. But soon, he realized that despite his anger, his burning fury, this Ghost was unable to slay Eiro like he had hoped. And throughout all that, he heard the Demon's pleads for forgiveness. 

What was he supposed to do now? Continue to try and kill Eiro? Or just give up?

Slowly, the Ghost of the young, male mage turned its head around as it felt a soft touch. And Eiro could see what it was as well. It was the spirit of the other adventurer, slowly trying to converse with the Ghost.

And suddenly, she also started to get a more strengthened form. Her hands were slowly becoming covered in a white layer as this Ghost's strong personality helped her become an undead as well, using the necromantic energies from her friend to do so.

Soon, Eiro saw two figures in front of him. One young man with an ink-black form, and one young woman with a snow-white form. The woman, a swordswoman, slowly held the mage's hand, and together with him, she looked deep into Eiro's eyes.

And with a soft smile on her face, and a bitter, sad scowl on his face, the two Ghosts gave Eiro their answer together.

"We will never forget what you did to us... But for now, we will forgive you for it."