Demon's Virtue

Eiro glanced at the system windows in front of him. He knew that the Devil was going to be worth quite a bit of experience, but something to this degree was... far, far more than he could have expected. Levelling up had been quite a drag ever since he evolved the last time. Of course, he still did; he did a lot of things that were worth experience, after all.

Before he had become an Arcanus, the only way for him to gather experience was through killing. Through the hunting of people or monsters or anything else that was alive, as was how any monster gained experience. But ever since then, or rather, maybe since he got his Legendary skill, he started to gain experience in other ways as well.

Eiro was a being of knowledge; while he was an Imp initially, and as such had the scent of Wrath clinging to his blood and flesh, his soul itself would rather belong to... Greed. If he even had to assign things in that way. He was the kind that wanted to gather. Greedily get everything he wanted to. Overindulge in knowledge and learning.

In that sense, maybe the overindulgance of Gluttony fit him quite well too. Either way, whatever the actual reason for this change, Eiro had started gaining experience for his actions, rather than just killing.

He had always had a higher rate of growth than others, and it wasn't just because he had a high amount of stat points that he could assign freely, which of course wasn't the case for anyone else in this world.

But now, the amount of experience he gained through killing probably rose a bit as well, and at the same time, he had attained the quality of gaining experience for doing things that aligned with who he was, which was usually characteristic to the class-system of people, rather than the race-system of monsters. Not that he complained, of course.

Through this, just by using magic, and by learning new things, he was able to gain experience and level up. He reached up to nearly the fourth floor of two Towers of Books, learning new information that he never could have imagined. He created complex spells, and of course, did quite a bit of hunting as well. But all of that was barely enough to push him over the Level 50 mark.

The Devil was a creature worth the last half of his levels. It wasn't directly clear how the 'experience' one would receive upon killing others was calculated. In part, it was certainly related to the ease and intent behind killing them. A bloody battle to the near-death, or a skilled assassination, would always give more experience than a real, pure accident.

At the same time, it was of course related to the 'worth' behind the two related individuals. The worth of the killer, and the killed. The current Eiro wouldn't gain any experience by squishing a spider under his foot, but the Eiro from before his first evolution certainly would have. And of course, the probably most important factor was how much the victim was worth.

Their level, their skills, their stats. Their achievements. The things they knew and experienced, the life they lived and how much all of that was worth in the eyes of the system's administrator; that calculating entity that put a number behind every single action, every single breath and thought and intention.

And that entity thought that the battle that was fought, and the Devil's life, had been worth enough for the current Eiro to level up nearly 50 whole times. The thought made him practically shudder. The Devil had been strong. He was a Master of two different skills, and Eiro had somehow managed to avoid any situation where he would have been able to make use of either of them.

Honestly, he was just glad that the Devil wasn't as well-prepared as he had expected. If he had somehow known that Eiro had received the qualifications to become a Lord of hell, or even that he was able to use holy magic... then he wouldn't have been able to use any of these methods.

But even if you just considered the Devil's age, there were a lot of things that he must have experienced, and considering that massive lump of knowledge that had been forced into Eiro's head through the use of Anura's knowledge-magic, maybe just attaining that also added quite considerably to the amount of experience he really gained.

Whichever was the case, Eiro couldn't know the limits of what the Devil was worth. If he had stopped at level 99, then he would have known exactly how much the Devil would have been worth. Enough to fill up levels 53 to 99 of the current Eiro. But since the level-limit was 100, all he knew that the Devil was worth at least 47 levels.

But trying to figure out the exact number wouldn't really have any use. He couldn't, and frankly, now, the Devil wasn't worth anything anymore but the unholy dust that was fueling the golden flames spreading out in front of Eiro.

Eiro turned around toward the others, who had all practically collapsed onto the ground in exhaustion, the moment they realized that it was safe for them to do so. There really wasn't anything that could harm them here anymore, after all. This was the safest spot in hell now.

"Is everyone alright?" the demon asked, sending out a light pulse of magic to check on at least their physical condition. It had become a habit ever since Arc fractured his leg without knowing it before. Any damage that Eiro recognized, he quickly healed, so now, they only had exhaustion, both physical and mental, to deal with.

"The Devil is dead..." James muttered quietly, looking up into the underworld's sky, feeling the cold grass on the back of his head, "That's seriously... well, insane, isn't it?"

"You can say that again..." Krog said with a laugh, leaning onto one of his weapons that he had pushed into the ground. The blood on his body, which was only in part his own, had started to dry and got stuck to his bodyhair, so he was trying to pick it out.

Ariella was still crying tears of relief now that the revenge she had spent her whole life pursuing had been enacted. Of course, it... didn't really happen the way she had always imagined it. Ariella herself wasn't the one that had really done the killing. She had just been here to assist Eiro, basically.

Her role was minor when it came to the Devil's actual death, a distraction that really only made things easier for the man that had actually taken that thing's life. Eiro could have probably done this on his own. Things would have gone a bit differently, and probably would have been a lot harder, but he didn't really need Ariella and the others here. It was like they were... bait.

Something to make the Devil think that Eiro didn't believe himself to be strong enough to do it all on his own, and since Eiro was quite good at not revealing all the cards he had up his sleeve, it must have been enough to make the Devil think Eiro was only gradually stronger than the the rest of the party.

For the extremely prideful Devil, that must have been the best distraction Eiro could have ever hoped for. To be underestimated, the expectations the Devil held for him dragged down just by Eiro being near them all. But really, that didn't matter to Ariella.

She knew how strong Eiro was, she knew it from the beginning, and had only come to realize how much more powerful he was becoming every single day. And of course, that came with the realization that this battle would be one fronted by him, instead of her. But as long as the Devil was dead, she was fine. She was happy, and could now move on with her life. Well, a few steps, at least.

There was still the fact that her father was the Hierophant. She still had to figure out what to do with him. It was always pushed back behind that infinitely far-away goal of killing the Devil, so she hadn't really many any plans. She thought that, if she was able to get rid of the Devil, the Hierophant would be easy in comparison.

But maybe that was just something she was telling herself to not have to think about it all too much.