Demon's Virtue

Eiro stared at Merlin confused. Morgan le Fay. That was the name of the Sage? The name of the person that Eiro's soul belonged to?

He looked at the mage of aberration, trying to figure out if he was telling the truth. Though in the end, even without the domain of truth's help, Eiro was able to make some sense of it. It was possible for Merlin to know that name. Jura, Partax, and the other Masters, they were all intertwined.

They knew each other, as though the forces of fate were drawing them together into situations where they would meet. And if the Sage had reached the stage of a Master as well, then them all meeting wasn't out of the question. Considering that Merlin, in his younger years, was stuck to the Masters like glue, him meeting the Sage was also possible in that situation.

However, there was a problem with that.

He knew about the name Morgan le Fay. That name itself hadn't been erased. It was the name of a figure that lived a hundred years ago, traveling the world, using their magic ambiguously and almost randomly, as though they were doing so without any particular intention.

One day, they might heal every injured person in a warzone, and the next, they could destroy both sides on their own, in a single blink of an eye. They acted so at their own whims, appearing here and there like a force of nature, that they attained the moniker 'le Fay'; the Fairy.

They acted in the way that the fairies in stories of old would do; these days, real fairies were seen seldomly, so they tended to be thought of as mere stories, things that didn't exist anymore, or maybe never did.

And so, many considered Morgan le Fay the closest thing to a Fairy that existed; and many did think that they were a true fairy in the first place. Whichever was really the case didn't matter at the end of the day, what was important was that they were a powerful, terrifying figure. And they held the same name as the Sage.

Was it a sort of title? Something passed down along the generations? Or had Morgan le Fay simply been the Sage the whole time? Though that wouldn't make any sense either; there were stories of the sage before the last one. Their names were well-known, and there was a Sage that existed at the same time as Morgan le Fay.

Rather, there were stories of the Sage and Morgan having been lovers at some point, though those could just be exaggerated or invented. Generally, Morgan le Fay was seen as a genderless, wholly asexual individual, which only strengthened the belief in them being a fairy.

Things didn't match up; was Merlin just trying to mess with him? Was he trying to play Eiro for a fool, as the namesake that Merlin had attained would suggest?

"Stop speaking nonsense," Eiro's growling voice poured out of his mouth almost involuntarily. He was being aggressive, more aggressive than he had intended on. Obviously, Merlin was just trying to use this opportunity to distract Eiro enough to escape. The Demon couldn't let that happen.

Quickly, Eiro took a step forward, ready to attack, but when he tried to do so, his legs simply buckled under his own weight. His body's water was rippling and shaking unstably, like what you would see when a novice tried to keep up their first water magic spell. Eiro could feel his body falling apart as one of the spirits making up his form was weakening.

Without hesitation, Eiro pushed the three of them out of his body. He didn't know for sure what was happening, but it was bad. Something was wrong with Nelly. Eiro's body shrank down slightly, as the spirits were pushed into the air. Nelly immediately fell to the ground, but was caught by Sarius and Gondos, who were helping her to the ground carefully.

Eiro immediately started feeding her some of his mana, as he stared at Merlin.

The Fool looked at Eiro, with a disgusting grin on his face, "See you next time. But, but, but, make sure not to forget what I said. You have until a month after the hero's birthday. Though first, you should probably deal with the Devil, right? Right, right?" Eiro watched as Merlin waved his hand, now having returned back to the material instead of its magical form, and a doorway appeared behind him.

It was an old wooden door, like you would expect from an old tower like this.

Merlin pushed the door open with a creak, revealing the canyon outside of the tower. And although Eiro wanted to chase after him, he knew that it would be too reckless to do something like that right now. He would be leaving the others in this place all alone, not to mention that he had to look after Nelly right now.

"Whatever, just scram," Eiro hissed at Merlin, who simply closed the wooden door behind him with a laugh. Just a moment after the door closed, it disappeared, the brick wall once more being the only thing in sight. But Eiro couldn't concentrate on that right now; he had to worry about Nelly.

"Are you okay? What's happening?" Eiro asked nervously, slowly lifting the Naiad up with his hands. Water was pouring from her body into a puddle on the ground, as if she wasn't able to keep her body together anymore. Her face was strained, and Eiro grew more and more nervous.

He had read about something like this in the realm of water's library; this was basically the equivalent to a Naiad bleeding out. If they weren't able to do something about this, she would die.

"Everything is fine, don't worry, I'm here," the demon said, trying to calm and reassure Nelly. She weakly looked up at Eiro, squinting, "Sorry, I just... I... that name, it..."

With that, Eiro finally understood. If Merlin had met the Sage, so did Jura. And if Jura met them, then so did Nelly. She must have known their name, but whatever the Sage had done to erase themself from not only all records of the world, but from every mind that knew about them, was showing cracks now that Merlin had said that name 'Morgan le Fay'.

Nelly must have been shaken up quite a lot in the first place, not only seeing the form that Merlin's magic took, but also the fact that it came from 'Merlin', someone that she had known for a long time as well. A spirit wasn't strictly a being of the physical like people or monsters; they were beings of the magical and of the mind.

They were quite literally made of magic, so any damage done to their mind must have immense consequences to their physical form as well.

"I understand, just... hold on for a while, okay?" Eiro said, slowly holding his hand over Nelly's body. He was filling her with as much magic as he could, trying to somehow counteract the damage she was experiencing. It wouldn't be a permanent solution, but at the very least, it could give her some more time to sort through things in her own mind.

Nelly was strong; she was far, far more powerful than other naiads were. And while her raw power was impressive, it wasn't really the thing that made her special. Her control over magic, her knowledge, her expertise... she was skilled far beyond what other spirits could muster. Someone like that wouldn't be done in by something like this... right?

"...ueen..." Nelly slowly whispered, and Eiro looked at her closely, "...the... the naiad... queen..."

Eiro looked at the spirit in his hands, trying to understand what she meant, "You need to go to the naiad queen? I don't know where she went, she disappeared from the lake after we spoke to her... I..."

"...not her... the current... queen..." Nelly shook her head, and Eiro was taken aback. Nelly was a supporter of the former Naiad queen, the one that had given Eiro her blessing. The 'lonely naiad'. He hadn't expected her to request to be taken to the current queen.

"Okay, I'll get you there, don't worry... just leave things here to me, and concentrate on getting better, okay?" Eiro told her nervously, placing Nelly against his chest. From there, three pale blue hands made of water magic were practically flowing out of the demon's core, carefully grabbing the naiad and pulling her into the elemental plane of water.

From there, Eiro's duplicate would have to take over. Even if he had been feeling his control over his duplicates' actions waning, they still shared the same mind. He knew what they were like; that Eiro adored Nelly as much as the original Eiro did, and would do anything that he could to make sure she would be fine.