Chapter 497: Monstrosity and Compassion

"W-What are you?!" One of the outlaws yelled out, and Eiro slowly tilted his head to the side, "Does it really matter, now? And I doubt that any of you will even understand the answer, even if I had one for you." The Demon said with a light grin. He walked over to the puddle of flesh, blood and bones that had been their companion, and grabbed the dead guy's head. He pulled him up with ease, and held him forward, for the first time in a long, long time letting his monstrosity run wild within him.

"That was a really powerful bomb you had there. Did one of you make it?" Eiro asked, as all the outlaws were stunned, unable to properly react to what they were seeing. The shadows soon faded away from Eiro's skin, showing his red and blue flesh, his crystal-like, colorful horns that sat above his head, and the deep crimson wings that were spreading out like a wall behind him.

"No answer? Well, that's fine. I can replicate the power of those bombs very easily myself anyway." The Demon said, stretching his prosthetic forward toward one of the closer outlaws. He constructed a spell and swiftly spoke the chant, and a moment later, a barrier had been constructed around the man. And with a snap of his finger, Eiro activated the second part of the spell that he casted, causing a violent explosion, much, much more powerful than that bomb from just now. While the guy that had been killed by his own bomb was still somewhat recognizable as something that used to be a person in death, this one had become utter nothingness. His bones had been crushed and his skin burnt to a crisp. At least his death was instantaneous, and he had no need to suffer through all that pain.

The insides of the cylindrical barrier had become covered in blood, and the moment that Eiro made it disappear, that curtain of blood fell to the ground. At that time, one of the other outlaws simply threw up on the ground, convulsing in horror. As if it was some sort of signal, some of the others attempted to run away.

"Sorry, but I came here to calm down a bit. And you guys? You're the perfect stress-relief. Scum that nobody will ever miss. Killing you makes me a good guy, rather, doesn't it?" Eiro said with a light chuckle, as he made the roots growing throughout the forest ground shoot up, tying everyone that had tried running away into place.

"You know, I was experimenting with necromancy a bit lately. With the limits of this magic, to be more precise. I know the structure of the human body better than probably anyone that has ever lived. I know exactly the patterns and priorities in which blood flows through your bodies, I know how your muscles retract and loosen when you do certain actions... If I'm very close, and focus a lot, I can even feel some... sparks flying around within your tiny little brains." Eiro smiled a bit, "So I was wondering, could I recreate a human body from the grounds up, if I had all the material to do it? It sounds unrealistic, right? But... you know what, here, let me show you."

The Demon smiled a bit as he squatted down in front of the first outlaw that had died here, pressing his hand onto the corpse's head. He let his mana flow throughout all the flesh, bones, muscles and blood that had gathered here, and he took control of every single bit of it.

Slowly, an undead rose from the ground. Or at least it tried, but since its body was completely destroyed, the most it could do was flail around. At least, that was the case for a few moments. Bit by bit, the bones all came together again, setting themselves into the right position. The muscles, like numerous tiny worms, crawled up those bones, strengthening the human's body. The blood seeped into everything, flowing through the gaps in everything in incredibly unnatural manners.

"Well, this is where it usually stops... you know, controlling fat and skin in particular is really, really hard, you know? I thought about combining it with different other types of magic, but nothing ever comes from it. At least, usually. You see, all the heat from the explosion started melting the fat, so now I can control it with water magic, and then I can set it again with ice magic. And... here we go, one more step!" Eiro explained, simply playing around in this incredibly gruesome way. But well... it's been a while since Eiro absolutely let loose like this, so he deserved to have a bit of fun, no matter how horrific it actually turned out to be.

"Now, how do I add the skin back onto it? Well, it's a bit bothersome, but at the end of the day I could just fix everything by hand, although that would defeat the purpose a little, you know?" Eiro pointed out, and smiled at his right hand, "So instead, I'll just do this." 

Eiro grabbed a small nut from his satchel and placed it into the mouth of the undead that he had just created. He made the seed sprout, doing something very similar to when he gave Rashi that impromptu wooden armor so that she would cover up somehow. Now, Eiro simply used a tree's bark to fill in whatever bits of skin weren't available anymore, "He doesn't look 'that' much like he did before, but it's better than what you saw just a few minutes ago, right? Come on, say 'hello' to your old friends will you, bud?" The Demon said, looking at the undead he created. Slowly, it walked forward, precisely while every bit of its body was being manipulated by Eiro. The undead walked in front of one of them, and then slowly placed his hand onto one of the outlaw's throats. The outlaw struggled, but the undead was much, much stronger than him. And so, within a moment, another outlaw had died.

"Of course, the easiest way to make a healthy-looking undead is just to kill someone without outwardly visible wounds, and then to take them over like that." Eiro explained, as he immediately turned the guy whose neck was just snapped into an undead as well.

"See? It's simple." The Demon said with a smile on his face, as some of the other outlaws glared at him with tears in their eyes, clearly fearful of what was going to happen to them now.

"Why are you doing this?!" One of them yelled out, and Eiro slowly shrugged in response, "I don't know. I took up teaching recently, so maybe I felt like teaching something that I would never tell my actual students, you know?" Eiro explained. He let out a deep sigh, and scratched the back of his head.

The Demon stayed silent as he approached the outlaw with his dagger in his hand. The two undead behind Eiro were slowly falling apart and rotting into pieces so that Eiro could properly bury them without a trace.

"And well... I'm just a parent helping out another parent, at the end of the day." Eiro said, as he stabbed his dagger into the head of the outlaw. One by one, he killed all of these people, making their bodies rot away before he made the ground simply swallow them up. If someone came by here anytime soon, they wouldn't be able to figure out what happened here, surely.

And when Eiro killed the last of the group, he saw a surprising message pop up in front of him.

[You have leveled up!]

[You have 120 unused stat points available!]

"Well, I guess this was worthwhile, then. I'm level 97 now. I really killed a lot today, huh?" Eiro muttered. He had been hunting for a few hours now without break, killing anything that he figured might give him a good chunk of experience without disturbing the forest too much more than it already was anyway. And now, Eiro turned back toward the being that caused said disturbance here in this forest in the first place.

Eiro climbed into the nest through the opening in the front. The wyvern was laying there, on death's doorstep. But even so, it still tried to get up to fight back against Eiro. It let out a painful screech that was meant to scare him away at least, but of course, Eiro just kept sitting there. He sat in front of this wyvern as it tried to fight back against death in order to save the children that never existed in the first place.

Eiro slowly approached the monster, and placed his hand onto its snout. He tried to relax it like he made Lugo relax when he was upset, and it seemed to work. The wyvern slowly laid down, pulling its eggs further into itself.

The wyvern was painfully malnourished, despite the fact that it had clearly been eating anything it came across. It had some older wounds covering it, which probably weakened it quite a bit in the first place. They seemed to come from other wyverns, comparing the shapes of the claws of this one to the old scars covering it.

And then, amongst the wounds, was something eerily familiar. It was a symbol that Eiro himself had seen plenty of times, just that this one's form took on a different symbol. One that he still remembered seeing long ago, though.

"So you're one of the Devil's toys as well, huh? The mark of gluttony for you..." Eiro whispered, "Don't worry, you won't be hungry for much longer." The Demon reassured the wyvern with a smile on his face.

The wyvern slowly closed its eyes, and Eiro pushed his tail toward the eggs, injecting some of his venom into them to give him control of the liquids inside of it. And then, slowly, all the eggs started cracking open. The wyvern ripped its eyes open again, and saw her children being born in front of her. Children that should never have even existed.

"Don't worry, I promise that I'll take care of them for you. You can sleep now." Eiro said with a soft smile on his face, and the wyvern finally stopped clinging to life, while Eiro held its head. And when its body went limp, and its death was confirmed even by the system, Eiro looked to the side and watched all the fake wyvern hatchlings he made out of ice fall apart again as well.

Eiro kept sitting there for a while longer, and finally got up when he thought it was time to head back home for tonight.

He dropped a few seeds into the inside of the tree, and touched the structure with a bitter smile. This place now became proof of both Eiro's monstrosity, as well as his compassion.