Chapter 546: The Captain

Eiro stepped onto the deck of the ship as it pulled out of the harbor. It was his first time on a ship as well, so he just wanted to make sure that everything was going well. Sure, the state of the ship itself was perfect, and so were the conditions for department, although it did take Eiro to help out a little bit with that by calming down part of the river, but for the most part, everything had already been fine.

The Demon stood by the side of the ship, looking over its edge. He saw his servants swimming around underneath the ship. They were giving Eiro any and all information that he needed, down to the temperature of the water.

It didn't take long until the sails of the ship were raised. The wind wasn't particularly strong, but Eiro did have some idea to help the movement of the ship out a little. He quickly approached the captain of the ship, and tried to make a suggestion, "Would you like me to use some magic to speed our travel up a bit?" He asked, and the captain looked at the Demon confused, "What? How'd you even do that?"

"Well, simply by manipulating the current of the river or the wind that hits the sails, of course." Eiro explained, "It would help us speed up by quite a bit."

The captain thought about it for a moment. But only a moment. Nearly instantly after blinking just a single time, he replied, "If you meddle with my ship in any way, I'm going to rip her hands off." He slowly looked down at Eiro's hand before chuckling, "A second time, mean." 

Eiro let out a deep sigh and rolled his eyes, "It would make your life a bit easier as well, you know?" 

"If magic is so useful, why'd you need me to bring ya to where you wanna go, huh?"

"I'm not saying that what you do is useless. It is incredibly useful. You're clearly incredibly skilled, I can tell. I'm just saying that this sort of thing is not an 'either, or' kind of deal, but a-"

"No, it is an 'either, or' kinda deal, ya hear me?" The captain replied, now getting annoyed by Eiro talking to him, "Although, ya at least seem smart enough to realise that I'm good at what I'm doin'." 

Eiro looked at the man in front of him, and lightly smiled, "I'm sorry if I was rude, I just wanted to help my friend. He's a dwarf, and they don't particularly fare well with sea travel."

"Dwarf? Who? I ain't seen one of those 'round here." The captain pointed out confused, and Eiro scratched the back of his head, "Ah, did you see the slightly older fellow, with the broad build? White beard and hair?"

"...Wasn't that guy taller than me? I think ye don't know what dwarves are, buddy." 

"Of course I do, but he actually happens to be an Elder Dwarf. Armodeus the Craftsman King. Do you know about him?" Eiro asked, and the captain looked at him surprised, "That's the Craftsman King? Seriously?"

"Yup, that's him. You know, a while ago, he gave my private carriage a bit of an upgrade. It's here on the ship, so you can go take a look at his craftsmanship if you want. It's the real deal." Eiro explained, "Oh, that reminds me. I'm pretty sure he would be quite excited about the idea of getting the chance to do something similar for a ship like this."

With one of his brows raised, the captain looked at Eiro, "I'm still not letting you use your little magic, ya hear?"

"I didn't expect you to, don't worry." Eiro replied, "I think I'll just leave you be for now. I don't want you to become distracted somehow." The Demon quickly walked away with a light smile. Even if the captain didn't want him to do anything, it was already too late for that. The captain technically didn't even have to do anything anymore, since Eiro was controlling the current to push the ship in the specific ways needed.

Eiro soon stepped out of the room, and quickly heard the captain muttering something to the other seamen. He probably asked them to take a look at the carriage for him, to see if it was actually as amazing as Eiro insinuated. The Demon grinned lightly to himself, before he walked back onto the main part of the ship's deck. And at the moment, it seemed like a certain heavyweight was causing some trouble for the crew.

"You dumb fucking animal, get the hell off that rope! Or else, I'm gonna turn you into a stew, ya hear?" One of them yelled out, but Lugo didn't seem bothered at all. He simply opened one of his eyes to look at that seaman, before pushing out some air out of his nostrils for something like a scoff, and then quickly returned to trying to nap.

"Aight, that's it. I'll apologize to yer owner for this, but it's his fault for bringing such a dumb fucking animal on a goddamn ship." He groaned loudly, and quickly pulld out a small knife out of his jacket. He was clearly about to try and injure Lugo, however... that wouldn't work.

Eiro was just standing there behind the seaman and watched as he tried to stab Lugo. But the moment that the knife hit the stag's skin, nothing but a loud 'clang' could be heard.

"Huh? The fuck?" He let out, before Eiro placed his hand onto the man's shoulder, "I think you're misunderstanding here a bit. Lugo isn't just a random animal. He happens to be a magic beast."

"M-Magic beast?" The man asked with a wry smile, and Eiro quickly nodded his head, "His hide is as hard as rock. If you fashion clothes out of his fur, it will be superior to most low-tier leather armor in nearly every way. He has a biteforce comparable to river hippos. You've heard of those before, right?" Eiro said with a smile on his face, and the man looked at Lugo with a wry smile. The Demon looked at his familiar proudly, and quickly walked up to him, leaning onto his antlers, "Oh, and he happens to be the familiar of one of the strongest people alive at the moment." 

"I-I'm sorry! I... I didn't know!" The man said with clear fear in his eyes, but Eiro just lightly chuckled, "Don't worry about it. Lugo can be an annoying asshole, so I get it. I've had the urge to turn him into emergency rations a couple times as well."

"R-Right..." The man said, before slowly pointing at the rope that Lugo was laying on, "C-Could you tell your familiar to stand up so that we can get the rope..? It's part of the sail, so we might not be able to pull it in in an emergency."

"Of course, don't worry." Eiro replied immediately, understanding that Lugo was quite at fault here, and quickly proceeded to pick the stag up with surprising ease. The boost of his physical strength worked quite well, it seemed. Not that Eiro had to struggle at all when picking him up otherwise. Although, Lugo did gain quite some weight during his two 'evolutions'.

In the three months that Eiro evolved, he had worked on feeding Lugo different magic stones. He evolved for the first time a week after Eiro's evolution began. At that point, Eiro really knew that Lugo wasn't anything like a magic beast. Or at least, that he wasn't a normal magic beast. When those reached level 100, they would simply receive a new trait. A new magic ability of sorts. But their body wouldn't change, that's just not how it worked. Of course, they couldn't level up just by eating magic stones either, so it was somewhat to be expected that Lugo was going to be different from them.

When he reached level 100, Lugo's body started to change. At that point, Lugo's body had become more robust. He was faster than before, and he had grown a lot in power, and a little bit in size as well. But for the most part, that was where it stopped. His antlers were a bit more wood-like, and his hide was tougher, but the real changes only appeared during his second evolution.

He had grown to be quite a bit larger than before, with his back-height being about half a meter more than before, and his body had changed like he had described, plus some more changes. His antlers were now practically completely made of wood, even if they didn't look it, and his skin was permanently rock-like, with a weird amount of flexibility to it if needed.

And of course, with that, Lugo had also grown a lot in speed and strength again. The only downside was that it took far, far too many magic stones to reach that point... It really nearly made Eiro cry when he calculated the amount that he had eaten for his second evolution.

But of course, since Lugo was so much bigger than before, his weight increased a good bit as well. That made the fact that Eiro picked him up with such ease even more impressive.

"Lugo, make sure to sleep somewhere, where you won't bother anyone, alright?" The Demon asked, and Lugo quickly nodded his head. But as Eiro made his way back underneath the deck to get to his cabin, Lugo tried to follow him. With a wry smile, the Demon looked at him, "Sorry... you're a bit too large to come down there... you won't fit." 

And so, after a loud, sad bellow let out by Lugo, Eiro figured that he should just stay with him for a while until the stag found a place to sleep.