Chapter 507: Lion

Eiro stretched out his four arms for a moment. They were feeling incredibly sore, probably because Eiro was currently entering the last stretches of his current evolution. The Demon swiftly pressed his arms together, making them fuse into two instead of four. For a moment they were quite thick and log-like, but his flesh soon compressed itself and his arms looked quite normal just a few seconds later.

The Demon grabbed his jaw and tried to get rid of its soreness. Lately, even that part of his body had become something that he could influence separately to an extent. The way his mouth worked was quite interesting now. At this point, he could split his mouth into two, including everything that came with it, including teeth, so that he could create two separate, full mouths on his cheeks. He could use both of them to speak at once without issue, even being able to speak about two separate things with ease. His mind had become capable of that. And it wasn't just that he was suddenly much more intelligent, which Eiro did assume he was to an extent, but rather, certain structures of his brain had changed to allow for parallel speech in this manner.

But at the same time, this felt quite weird, and looked even weirder outwardly. He didn't even show it to Avalin and Leon because he knew that it would scare them, since even the rest were quite shocked by what they were seeing.

"You guys, are you ready to go?" Eiro asked, peaking his head into the sitting room. The children all seemed to be properly dressed, and ready and eager to head off.

"Alright, perfect. I'll feed the wyverns real quick and then I'll join you all." The Demon explained to them, straightening the tie that he was wearing. Eiro quickly made his way to the gardens, and soon reached the greenhouse that he had constructed a while ago. After everything had been built by the people that Eiro hired, the demon had filled it with different, more 'exotic' plants. He wanted to create a practically tropic climate in there, since it was the best climate for the wyverns whose eggs Eiro had brought with him.

Eiro whistled for the wyverns with one of his mouths, using the other to speak instead, "Come here, food's ready." The Demon exclaimed, and the wyverns jumped down from the trees just a few moments later. They immediately rubbed their bodies on Eiro's legs, since they were currently just newborn hatchlings, and were as such still just the size of a housecat.

With a smile on his face, after turning his two mouths into one again, Eiro fed the small wyverns the chunks of raw meat that he had prepared for them.

"Oi, stop it, leave some to your brother." Eiro grumbled with a frown, pushing one of the wyverns out of the way to feed the smallest of the batch. Once all of them were fed, Eiro just rubbed their heads for a little while, to make sure that they were happy and healthy. Eiro had already managed to get rid of the mark of gluttony's effect with Bavet's help. Since the mark could only really form once the wyverns had been born, Bavet was able to seal away the mark in the process. It was still there for now, but the wyvern's wouldn't be affected by that insatiable hunger as all those others were. And on top of that, Bavet had also already helped seal the monstrosity of the wyverns before they were even born, really making them just small dogs with wings.

"I'll be back with more food tomorrow. Don't fight with each other, alright?" Eiro said with a smile, and the wyverns all started to scatter around the room. Eiro left the greenhouse and made sure to lock the door, even protecting it through an arcane 'lock' spell that would protect the whole structure in another way.

Eiro took a deep breath as he flapped his wings, quickly bringing him back to the manor's door. He stopped for a moment and closed his eyes as he folded up his wings, pulling them into his back. It felt a bit tight and stuffy, but it wasn't that bad once Eiro's back properly closed up. His tail also quickly rolled up and was pulled into the Demon's lower back. Luckily, Armodeus was skilled in numerous different areas of craftsmanship, and was able to tailor him a special-made suit that had hidden parts to it that he could push his wings and tail through if he needed to.

The only thing that he would now have to hide were his horns... a slightly troublesome issue. His wings had grown in size quite considerably. More colors had been added to the arrangement, and now they were really sitting atop Eiro's head like a crown, stretching out into different directions. And now, when Bavet transformed Eiro's body and horns, his hair ended up being quite long, reaching the center of his back.

Since Eiro's body looked slightly bulkier at the moment, as it was bulging up just to compress itself within the next few days after that, this long, rainbow-colored hair looked quite weird in Eiro's opinion. However, he simply tied it up into a ponytail to make it at least appear shorter, and then Eiro just had to deal with it for a while until he figured something else out.

"Honestly, it's quite pleasant to not have to transform your wings and tail like that... just changing the color of your skin from red and blue to that of pale flesh, and turning your horns into locks, is really pretty relaxing compared to before~!" Bavet pointed out as the two had been fused, and Eiro let out a deep sigh while putting on his suit jacket.

"Right." Eiro rolled his eyes a bit and fixed the placement of the decoration on his suit a bit. He was a baron, so he had to have these sorts of things on his suit properly, "Now, let's go."

"Huh? But Armodeus isn't ready yet, right?" Rudy asked, and Eiro quickly shook his head, "He's ready, he's just coming down the stairs." Eiro replied, as he threw a small ring over through the door.

"Did any of you-" Armodeus started, although he was interrupted as the small item he was looking for already hit his chest. He quickly caught it, and looked back at Eiro, "Ah, thanks, lad."

The elder dwarf quickly continued weaving his beard, using the ring that Eiro threw at him as an accessory. This was traditional dwarven beard-decoration, so it was something that Armodeus tried to wear as much as he could during these sorts of official events.

"I'm still quite jealous of your hands. You did that in less than a second." Eiro pointed out as he closed the buttons of his jacket, but Armodeus scoffed in response, "Lad, you've got four hands. I'm the jealous one."

"We get it, you're both jealous of the other. Can we go now?" Arc asked with a light frown, and Eiro turned his head, "Arc, calm down. Happy thoughts. We don't want your skill to-"

"How can I think happy thoughts when that pair of sperm and egg donors is gonna be there?" Arc groaned loudly, and Eiro sighed deeply, "By realising that this event will help you forever be rid of them."

"...Fine. I'll try." Arc said, walking ahead through the hallway to get outside. Eiro turned his head to the side to look at his friends, "Are you three ready to go as well?"

Krog looked back at Eiro nervously, as he put on his slightly too tight jacket, "A-Are you sure that we should come along? Eiro, this is a party with literally every ruler of basically every country... Do we belong there?"

"You do. You're my fellow party-members, aren't you?" Eiro pointed out, "Listen, getting along with all those rulers will just bring the party closer to becoming S-Rank. You guys want that as well, right?"

"Yeah, but can't we do that by just... you know, doing our job?" James asked. Neither him nor Krog were particularly good at socializing, so they weren't all too excited about this.

"We could, but it would take a few years longer than if we do this..." Jess explained, "But if we can impress a few kings, we might be S-Rank within a few months, especially once Eiro becomes the 'Hero's Companion'."

"Yep, that's exactly it. And also, this is probably exciting for you all as well anyway. The rulers are bringing their own candidates, so you can meet strong people from all over the world." Eiro explained with a grin on his face, and both James and Krog were actually starting to get curious about seeing all those people at that party.

"Fine. Then let's go..." James sighed, before Eiro smiled and turned toward his children, "Sounds good." Eiro said, as he squatted down to pick up Avalin and Leon.

"Let's go, you two." Eiro said, and the two quickly came up to him. Eiro made sure that Avalin's contact lenses were properly in her eye, hiding her omnichromatic eyes, and that she was wearing her bracelets and anklets, properly turned into pretty decoration, that would hide her holy aura from leaking out.

And then, Eiro looked at Leon. He moved his hands through his son's thick hair, and brushed through it one more time with a deep sigh, "I told you to be more careful with your hair, right? It looks messy like this, and we need you in particular to look good in front of them, okay?"

"But... I like it like this..." Leon muttered, and Eiro looked back at him with a smile, "I know, so do I. But I want others to see you in your whole beauty." The Demon explained, as he pressed down Leon's hair, revealing his ears. As Leon matured over the past few months, his ears wandered up his head a bit to a new location, changing shape in the process. He now had a feline's ears, and amber-colored eyes, and he looked back as his thin tail waved behind him.

"Don't worry Leon. We will show everyone just what an amazing lion you are at that party."