Chapter 358 - Another World

Eiro stepped away to the sidelines again, standing next to a shocked James. 

"What's wrong?" The Demon inquired with a light smirk on his face, before the Light Elf stared back at him with a wry smile, "What do you think is wrong?" 

"Hah, you know how powerful my magic is already. And this armor is just a gift from Armodeus, made using something gifted to us by a new friend." Eiro explained, looking at the large window that the royalty was using to view everything, and in particular was looking at Lognir for a moment.

But when he did, the Queen kept staring at Eiro as well, with the same soft smile as she wore before. For now, Eiro had to ignore all of this. He just took a deep breath and waited for the announcer to close this event up. People slowly left the Arena and even James and Eiro made their way back to the entrance for now.

Of course, all the students that were gathered there were more than just interested in this person that was capable of displaying such wonderful magic within a matter of moments.

"What class will you teach?"

"How old are you?"

"How did you manipulate that many types of magic?" 

The students rushed at Eiro and questioned him without hesitation. The Demon looked back at them with a wry smile and slowly collected his thoughts, trying to answer them bit by bit. Of course, he lied for most of the questionst that were asked, at least when they related to details of Eiro or his abilities. He didn't mind answering things that were actually related to the school itself.

At some point, he managed to finally get out of the crowd of students, and approached the two children that were waiting toward the back wall. Without hesitation, Eiro pulled both Arc and Clementine into a hug, "I missed you guys. How's it been since you guys came here?" 

Clementine looked up at Eiro with a broad smile on her face, "It was super fun! There's a lot of really nice people around! And one time another girl got really hurt, but I was able to hold myself back!" She said with a smug expression on her face, and Eiro rubbed his hand through her hair, "I'm proud of you, Clementine."

"Hehe~!" With a broad grin that showed her pearly white teeth, Clementine pressed her head further against Eiro's hand. Meanwhile, Eiro looked at Arc, "I wanted to talk to you about something later. Let's go meet the others first though, and then we need to head somewhere where nobody will disturb us, alright?"

Arc looked back at Eiro a bit surprised, but just shrugged in response, "Sure, I guess?"

It seemed like Arc didn't really think anything of it. 'Worry' and 'Anxiety' were emotions that were suppressed by Arc's unique skill as well, after all.

The other students around them were a bit curious about the relationship between this new teacher and the two prodigy students that showed themselves this year. But of course, Eiro wasn't trying to hide anything at all.

Slowly, Arc, Clementine, Eiro and James made their way out of this area. Eiro was trying his best to suppress his presence so that he wouldn't be approached by too many people that watched his performance here, and quickly made his way to where the others were right now.

Once there, Eiro slowly squatted down behind Leon and Avalin, who were looking around trying to find their father right now, "Hello there, you two. Are you looking for someone?" He asked them, and they turned around immediately, looking at Eiro surprised and a bit scared. They took a step back and huddled up to Sammy, Rudy and Felix. Of course, those three realized that this was Eiro himself, but both Leon and Avalin didn't.

But this was a bad place to make Bavet remove the transformation of his head, "Don't worry! It's me, your daddy! I'm just wearing a bit of a disguise right now!"

Leon and Avalin looked up at their siblings confused, and once they nodded their heads, realized that this really was Eiro after all.

"Daddy!" Avalin and Leon exclaimed basically at the same time, before the Demon picked them up with a broad smile on his face, "Did you two behave when staying with uncle Solomon?" Eiro asked with a smile, and the two of them of course nodded their heads immediately, starting to tell Eiro stories about what fun things they did while staying at the castle while Eiro was gone.

The Demon listened curiously and closely, slowly carrying the two of them toward the noble area so that they could meet with Solomon again.

Eiro was quickly let in by the guards again, and vouched for his children as well of course, and then made his way up the stairs to the viewing area for the nobles. Once in there, the eyes of everyone here was focused on the Demon again.

With a slight smile on his face, Eiro put down Avalin and Leon and stepped into the center of the room, "Now that you realize that I'm not just some child from the boonies, let me introduce myself to you all. My name is Eiro, as you heard before. I know that many think of this name as a taboo, but to me, it's an honor to carry the same name as the Great Hero of the past." Eiro explained to these nobles, "And of course, in a few months' time, I will take part in the tournament to be allowed to accompany the newest Hero on his journey. Personally, I think I'm a prime candidate to join."

Slowly, the Demon turned his eyes toward a certain woman sitting in the corner of this room, the Bloodstone Sorceress Evelyn James, locking eyes with her. Of course, she also quickly realized who this man was, although she wasn't sure how he changed his form to be just like that of a human.

Everyone was silent for a while, until a certain man stepped away from his own personal, special area within this room. He slowly approached Eiro, placing his hand onto his shoulder with a broad smile on his face and slowly nodded at him before moving over to stand by his side instead.

With a broad smile, Solomon exclaimed, "You heard him! And so that everyone knows, I am the one that personally requested for Eiro to take part in that tournament. So of course, I don't think there will be any complaints about this matter?"

The nobles, realizing that if they said anything against Eiro, it would be like they defied the crown, they quickly started to act like all their worries had been blown away. Just like Eiro thought, everything was going to work out well without any particular incidents.

--- 

Eiro and Arc soon reached the private place where the Demon wanted to speak to his son. It was really just a random room that Eiro was protecting with magic to make sure that nobody would be able to listen in on their conversation. After letting out a deep sigh, Eiro held his arm to the side. Slowly, his transformation disappeared and instead a black snake appeared around Eiro's arm.

"Thanks for your help, Bavet." The Demon said with a rather deep groan. The transformation process was a bit uncomfortable sometimes, but it wasn't too bad.

Eiro placed his hand onto the top of his head, feeling his horns to make sure that they didn't stay rainbow-colored hair, and then directly faced Arc with relief, "Bavet, could you head outside and make sure nobody comes near here?"

Slowly, the snake dropped off of Eiro's arm and then turned into a fully grown man, "Sure, I guess." The Slime replied and stepped out of the room without much discussion. It seemed like Bavet was a bit exhausted. He would need to let him rest some more, or find some way so that Bavet could keep the transformation up while asleep so that he could rest properly.

Either way, that wasn't what Eiro was worried about the most right now. Instead, he looked at Arc with a deep stare and locked eyes with him, before Arc smiled wrily and asked, "Everything alright? Did... Did I do something? If it's about the vase, then-"

"What was the world you first lived in like?" Eiro asked bluntly, interrupting Arc to get to the main topic immediately. Arc's heartrate immediately spiked and he started to panick. It was a real panic attack, something that Eiro has never seen from him before.

Of course, the Demon quickly embraced his son and made sure to calm him down, "Don't worry. No matter who you were before, right now, you are my son. But this is something that we still need to talk about, and I felt like I had to confirm with you that this suspicion is right. And it seems like it is."

Arc grasped onto Eiro's clothes as his rapid breathing finally slowed down again and he rubbed the few tears out of his eyes, "I... You're right... For 19 years, I lived a life in another world... It was one that was vastly different to this one... And then at some point, I died and-"

"Arc, calm down. You don't need to explain everything to me right now, just what you feel comfortable to." The Demon said bluntly. Slowly, Arc looked up at Eiro and slowly nodded his head, "I... I understand."

Arc took a step back and tried to calm himself down, before looking straight into Eiro's eyes with a dedicated expression, "I will tell you everything, then. First of all, the world I was born in was a lot more advanced than here. We didn't really have too many diseases to worry about, and it was mostly peaceful. You could talk to anyone in the world instantly if you wanted to as well."

"Sounds like there were some rather powerful mages over there." Eiro said, but Arc quickly shook his head, "No, there was no magic there. There was no system there, and no monsters either. And Humans were the only people there. We still had animals of course, but otherwise... That world was completely different to this one. We relied on 'Science' instead."

Eiro raised his brows confused, in complete disbelief, "No magic? No system? And no monsters? Then how-" Eiro cut himself up as he tried to get his thoughts together.

"What about other beings then? Magic Beasts? Nature Spirits? Things like that?" Eiro inquired, but Arc just slightly laughed, "No, those weren't a thing either. Well... I think. Some people believed that magic was a thing, and also those magic beasts and nature spirits, I guess. But publicly, there really wasn't."

"Then how did you get here? Didn't you use some sort of spell to transport you to this world?"

Arc looked back with a bitter expression, "No... I died of Cancer on my 19th birthday. And then when I died, I was brought here."