Chapter 680: A glimmer of hope

Solomon looked at the dejected expression of the man sitting across from him. He had seen Eiro angry a few times, but usually, he had a pretty stoic demeanor. When they were alone, he would seem mostly emotionless, at most smiling when speaking about his kids or the plans he had for the future, and while he was outside presenting as 'Eiro Jura Daemonherz', the academy's lecturer, he would generally just smile the whole time to seem more approachable.

However, this was something that Solomon hadn't seen in Eiro. It was a sort of hopelessness that Solomon himself knew incredibly well.

"When I first found out that Charles' natural healing factor was... well, practically nonexistent, I was scared. So, so scared. The amount of damage our bodies take on every day through the smallest actions, that usually just heal, will build up on him and make his life worse. Frankly... I'm not even sure if he will be able to live to be my age, the way things are going," Solomon explained, looking down at the ground, "I spoiled Charles more than you could even believe, and that made him turn into an insufferable young man that frankly only his mother and I could love. But these days... he has become brighter. More outgoing. He has made friends, sneaks out of the castle when he thinks nobody is watching, and lives a relatively normal life. Sure, he needs some more support from healers and potions than others, but he's happy. And that's all that matters."

"...Despite a disorder that could cripple him not just physically, but emotionally as well, he has been quite... alive. If that makes sense," Eiro agreed, and Solomon looked up with a smile, "Of course it makes sense. And there's honestly just a few simple things that got him out of that rut. Determination, love and support from those close to him, and... hope. When we visited Armodeus, hoping for him to introduce us to Jura somehow, that was our complete last straw. Without those special techniques of his, Charles would have never really been able to live any semblance of a normal life again. And then, you came around. You, right then and there, took care of the matter. That night was a turning point for Charles. He went from the deepest darkness he has ever found himself in, to getting just the tiniest star in the sky. And I think that's what Clementine might be missing right now. Just a single star to follow. And if that star can't be that she can rid herself of that skill in the future, maybe it's something else. She could grow to have a deeper understanding of its nature, or simply learn to control it. Whatever it is, with you and her siblings by her side, it's impossible for her not to find the light, even if it might take a while."

Eiro leaned back in his seat, and placing his hand over his eyes and laughing, "Man, no wonder this country is striving with a King like you."

The Demon stood back up, and walked toward the door. Bavet, who had been silent for the duration of the conversation, slowly stood up and fused into Eiro's chest. Somehow he seemed a bit more... subdued than normal, but Eiro ignored it for now. After letting out all that frustration and getting some of the best advice he has heard in a long time, he was feeling quite good. If Bavet had anything he wanted to talk about, he would come to Eiro with it.

"I'll leave you be for now. Thank you, really," the Demon smiled, placing his hand onto the door handle, "I'm glad I have you as a friend, Solomon."

The king was silent for a few moments. Those words weren't what he expected to hear from Eiro right now, so he didn't consciously know exactly how to respond, though he knew that it wasn't really needed between him and Eiro at this point anyway.

"Before you leave..." Solomon finally said, looking down at a piece of paper in front of him. He didn't want to drop this on the Demon right after the conversation he just had, but he also knew that it couldn't really be avoided, "There's something I need to tell you about." --- Eiro knocked on the wooden door. It was quiet for a few seconds, until a quiet voice finally responded, "...come in..."

The demon pushed open the door, stepping into Clementine's room. The girl was sitting on her bed, wrapped in her blanket. She had been like this for a while now.

"Please, I don't want to talk more about this right now..." Clementine muttered, hiding more within her blanket. Eiro walked further into the room and closed the door behind him, "Then you don't need to talk. Just listen for a few moments, alright?"

Clementine looked up at the demon and slowly nodded, "...fine..."

Eiro sat down on his daughter's bed, turning toward her, "I'm sorry if I pushed you too much into trying to cook. I thought maybe it would help, but in the end, maybe it was the wrong approach to all this," he explained, and Clementine slowly looked up at him, "No, I... it was fine, I did enjoy it. It's just..." "You don't have to explain or justify yourself in anyway, that's not why I'm here. Listen, I know you're struggling. I know you're scared and unsure of how things will go. And I understand your fear, definitely. What you're going through, without even the ability to do anything about it right now... I would also be terrified," Eiro explained, slowly placing his hand onto Clementine's back over her blanket, "But all you need to know is that I and the others are here for you and love you so, so much. Ever since you children gave me my name, my whole goal in life had become to make sure you would be safe and happy, no matter how you would end up getting to that happiness, or what form it would take in the end. And you are still so, so young. You have all the time in the world to figure out how to get there. The journey might be a bit tougher for you than for others, but you don't have to get there on your own. I will literally change the world to pave the road for you, and I will be there every step of the way."

Clementine was quiet for a few moments. Eiro could tell that she was processing his words and trying to calm herself back down, and she soon pushed her way out the blanket-shell she had built around herself. She wrapped her arms around Eiro's neck and pulled him into a deep hug, tears stermaing down her cheeks. Clementine didn't say anything, nor did she need to. As Eiro had told her when he came in here, there was no need for her to talk.

Eiro rubbed the girl's back and held her until she let go. At that point, her tears had already soaked into his shirt, and Clementine's eyes were red and puffy.

"Let's just take it a step at a time. Whenever you're ready, I'll be taking it with you, alright?"

Clementine nodded her head, and Eiro pulled the hair out of her face, rubbing some tears off her cheeks as he did so, "Just rest some more, alright? I'll be in my study if you need me."

The girl laid back down. Crying was exhausting, clearly. Eiro walked back into the hallway, closing the door once more. He started to walk down the hallway and climbed up some stairs, soon finding his way into his study. Inside there, a large white snake laid curled up on the carpet.

"Back already?" Bavet asked surprised, glancing at the clock in the corner of the room. Eiro nodded, "Yeah. Clementine is resting now."

"Any next steps for that stuff?"

"When Clementine feels ready, yeah," the Demon replied, sitting down at his desk. Bavet sighed, "So you've got to deal with 'that' now instead?"

"Mhm," Eiro said, pushing his hand into the air in front of him. He placed his fingers around an invisible book, pulling it from an invisible shelf. In his hand, the Demon's grimoire appeared. He had been feeding it with as much magic as he could, and it had grown into a wonderful and ornate book that just few in this world could compare to. Its seemingly infinite pages were filled with numerous spells that Eiro had developed over the past few months.

As he thought about the spell he wanted to go to and flipped the book open, the right page was already right there. The spell inscribed onto these unique pages was a massively complex one, to the point where, without Eiro's eyesight, it might be hard for people to actually see most of the intricate lines.

Next, Eiro pushed his hand next to himself, and pulled a small vial out of his treasury. It was the essence of the Devil that Eiro had extracted from Zeke Redbrow, the descendant of the Devil that had somehow been influenced to come to the academy as a sort of ploy. The Demon let a single droplet of the Devil's essence fall onto the intricate spell on the grimoire's pages. The spell lit up, and immediately started to work as Eiro fed it his own mana.

Quickly, three needles of ice formed in the air. They were incredibly thin, starting to twist around, all pointing into basically the same direction. However, it was just 'basically'. They were ever so slightly different, but they all pointed at a single place; the Devil.