Demon's Virtue

Surprised, Nelli turned toward the Imp who just made a rather unexpected request, "You want to form a contract with me?" She asked, and Eiro nodded his head in response. "Of course, why wouldn't I?" He replied, and Nelli just slightly smiled as she slowly nodded.

"Fair enough…" The Spirit said quietly, and then slowly floated up to the Demon with a smile. "Are you sure you are fine with me? That would mean that for the rest of your life, as long as you don't somehow break the rules of the contract, you will have me around… you know that, right?" Nelli pointed out, and Eiro nodded his head.

"I know, I've read up on it a bit before. One Spirit per Element you have a high affinity with… And apparently Higher-Tier Elements count separate as well? It's hard to get specific information like that, somehow…" The Demon pointed out with a slight sigh, and Nelli just slightly chuckled.

"Why didn't I expect you to have read up on that?" The Naiad laughed, and Eiro looked at her with a slightly wry smile, "What do you expect me to do, try not to figure out why I'm a Spirit-Like existence?" Eiro pointed out, and Nelli slowly nodded with a smile on her lips before she extended her hand forward toward Eiro's.

"Then if you're sure, let's form a contract. It's rather simple, really. All we need to do is give each other a part of our mana." Nelli explained, so Eiro slowly nodded his head. "Then let's start." Nelli suggested, and then slowly started to push some of her mana, although in her case it was rather part of her body, since Spirits were literally made of mana itself.

And while Eiro could feel the thick mana with a liquid-like feeling press through his skin, the Demon returned the favor and pushed his own mana out of his hand and into Nelli's body, before the Spirit started to speak.

"May our souls intertwine and our bodies connect. Your body is mine, and mine is yours, until either ceases." She started, and then continued on for another minute or so. It seemed to be the simple content of the 'contract' or something like that. Eiro tried his best to remember it, although it really wouldn't be tough with his memory.

During the whole process, both of them kept giving mana to each other, and once Nelli finished, Eiro saw some notifications in front of him, while the center of his body slowly started to heat up.

[You have formed a Contract with the Naiad, Nellissa Arigata]

[Beginner Spirit Magic Skill Learned]

As Eiro looked at the notifications, Nelli just floated right next to him and basically sat down on his shoulder. "Ew, I hate seeing my World's Name…" She muttered quietly, before Eiro raised his brows surprised.

"Oh? You can see my notifications?" He asked, and Nelli nodded her head in response. "Mhm, because our souls are connected now. You can see mine too, because of the type of contract we formed." Nelli explained, before Eiro slightly frowned.

"There are other types?" He asked, so Nelli could only smirk at him, "Oh, right, most of us Spirits are dicks… Yeah, there's multiple types of contracts. The Usual contract that Spirits and People form are ones that basically let the Spirit leech off of the person… While the Spirit needs to be fed a lot of mana, the person only gets minimal return… The Spirits get to know everything about the Person, and the person nothing about the spirit beside their name." Nelli explained with a smile.

"We, on the other hand, formed a contract on equal terms. You support me, I support you equally, in a fair relationship… And there's no real punishment if you break the rules of the contract beside the contract being broken up… Usually, it could end in the contractor's death, not for you, though." The Naiad pointed out with a smile, so Eiro lightly smiled and nodded.

"Interesting. Then thanks for trusting me." The Demon pointed out, and the Spirit just smiled back at him, "Don't worry, of course I trust you… How could I not after six years?" Nelli answered, before she slowly just dove into the air and disappeared, while the air itself gave off some water-ripples. Although she only really stopped being perceivable on the outside… Somehow, Eiro had a tough time adjusting to the weird feeling of somehow seeing her, and at the same time not seeing her float in front of him.

"This is the state I'll be in most of the time… something that is also only possible because of the type of contract we have. Usually, Spirits will disappear into the plane we normally live in, but this is something of a space inbetween." Nelli explained, her voice seeming weirdly like an echo.

"I can't be perceived by others beside you, we can speak somewhat privately here, and I can stay on lookout for you! Although the last of those will mostly just be useful when you're asleep… Because my perception is many, many times worse than yours..." Nelli pointed out, before she slowly floated up to Eiro's hand as she came back out of the 'middle space' and quickly helped the Demon get rid of the cloth he used to bind the wooden hand to his arm properly, while Eiro kept holding it against his stump.

"Alright, now what?" Eiro asked, and Nelli slowly placed her hands onto Eiro's arm again, just like before. "We'll continue healing you. I'm going to take a bit of your mana to do it… It might be slower than with Jura's healing, because you don't have a particular talent to healing magic, but it should work out well enough." The Naiad explained, so Eiro nodded his head and swiftly felt cold water seeping inbetween his open wound and the wood, before he could literally feel his flesh regrow.

It was rather uncomfortable, like the feeling of air being sucked out of his lungs, just far, far stronger. And soon, there came the cold wood that literally merged with his flesh. This was somehow even more uncomfortable than literally cutting through his skin before.

But after a while, and after having his mana drained a fair bit while a few notifications appeared telling him that his new Spirit Magic skill leveled up a couple of times, Nelli stopped healing Eiro's arm.

"We're done!" She exclaimed, so Eiro slowly nodded his head with a smile on his face as the wooden hand hung downward limply. "Then let's try our best…" The Demon sighed slightly, and then slowly placed his aching arm on the table as he started manipulating his life force.

Life Force was basically another type of energy that exists in addition to Mana, so the method of controlling it is similar in a few ways, although much tougher and with a lot more limits one had to pay attention to, since Life Force had to constantly be supplied to every part of your body for you to actually be able to survive without losing any limbs.

Slowly, Eiro shifted his Life force around a little and started pushing it into his Prosthetic. It was pretty tough to get through there, but usually the special types of wood that they used for the prosthetics was pretty accepting to Life Force. Not all kinds could be used, after all. Some either didn't accept external Life Force in them at all, others simply wouldn't be able to be seen as part of the person's body, and others wouldn't be able to be moved.

Eiro was actually kind of worried that this wood wasn't going to take in his Life Force, because it didn't seem so right now, but soon it seemed like the Demon managed to break through and the wooden hand tensed up while Eiro felt a fair amount of… pain.

It was as if his bones were cracking and his muscles ripping while the fingers started bending in unnatural ways, and the Imp immediately grasped his arm. "What the…" Eiro muttered quietly as the pain died down and his hand became 'calm' again, as two notifications appeared in front of him.

[Your body has connected to the <Hand of Demonic Frost> as it carries your essence]

[Connection Rating: 0.1%]

Eiro turned over toward Nelli and pointed at the notifications, "Is that… normal?" He asked, considering that Nelli had a lot more experience with these things considering the long time she spent with Jura, and the Spirit slowly shook her head.

"I don't think so… Did this happen when you got your other Prosthetics?" Nelli replied, but the Demon just shook his head, "Definitely not… But the 'Hand of Demonic Frost'? That does make sense considering that the tree was grown through me and my mana…" Eiro muttered quietly as he looked at the pale blue wooden hand and slowly tried to move his fingers. He could do so pretty well, although it was to a lesser extent than the hand he had before that he got from Jura five years ago, so he felt quite disappointed.

"Hmm…" Eiro sighed, but Nelli just floated up in front of him and smiled, "Don't worry, the 'Connection Rating' is so low… Maybe you can move it more easily when it goes up?" She suggested, so Eiro just slightly smiled back at her.

"Let's hope so. For now, let's show the kids." Eiro told her, and then slowly made his way back outside before walking over toward the front door of the house, reaching his right hand forward, figuring that if it could increase, then he should try to use it as much as possible.

It was a bit loud inside right now, but Eiro could handle it a bit better now, and could slightly control the level of strength of his senses, at least that's what it seemed like to Eiro himself. "Hey there…" Rudy said with a whisper, trying to be as sensitive to the Imp as possible.

"Don't worry, speak normally. Just don't yell." The Demon said with a smile as he looked around at the others, who had all gathered in here by now. "So, there's two things that I, or rather we, would like to tell you. One, I just finished my new hand, but it's not working perfectly just yet so your training weapons might need to wait another few days." Eiro explained to them, and the children seemed rather understanding of it and just nodded their heads.

"It looks cool, though." Arc pointed out, so Eiro smiled back, "Thank you. I like it as well. But either way, the more important thing is something else, I just wanted to get that out of the way first." Eiro explained as he turned over toward Nelli, "The two of us just formed a contract, so I won't be leaving you any time soon, it seems." The Spirit pointed out with a broad grin, and Clementine was the first to jump up happily.

"Whooa! That's cool!" She exclaimed, "I'm glad you don't have to leave!" Clementine said with a broad smile, and Eiro raised his brows surprised.

"Wait, you would have needed to leave if we didn't form a contract?" He asked, and Nelli looked at him with a slight, seemingly sad and bitter smile. "Yeah… Spirits can't exist long without a proper source of mana. And if it isn't a contractor, it's a place with rich mana… And those are rather rare." She explained, so Eiro slightly nodded his head.

"I see… Then I'm glad I made the choice to ask you." The Demon pointed out, and then looked back at the children in front of him. "So yeah… Don't try to mess with me when I'm asleep, I have someone that can keep watch for me now." Eiro said with a slight smirk on his face, and Nelli slightly chuckled in response, "What if I'm the one messing with you?" She asked, so Eiro just slightly stared at her with a blank expression.

"I didn't think about that…"