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Chapter 287: Nearly Forgotten

“Light Elf? Sorry, I’m not familiar.” The Demon pointed out, trying to lead some subtle, useless conversations while trying to find a large source of mana in this area, while further analyzing the flow of the storm’s magic outside. Eiro did have a bit of a weird feeling at the back of his mind while speaking to this man though. As if there was something important about this man.

But with a loud groan, James laid his head onto the table drunkenly, “Don’t blame ya. Not many do. Just know that I can sense magic like High Elves.” He pointed out, “Although these past couple days, some weird shit’s been happening. You happen to notice anything like that?” James asked, the tone of his voice giving Eiro the idea that maybe this man was subtly trying to question him about what he was doing even more.

Of course, Eiro didn’t really like that all too much, “Of course I didn’t. But if you say that the storm is giving you an uncomfortable feeling, then why would you tread through it just to get a drink at a bar like this? Everyone else is trying to shut themselves in.”

“Sure, but I came here to deal with that shitty demon the guild informed me about. Killed some kids near where I live. I’m not gonna let that happen, there’s kids where I live as well.” James pointed out blutnly, before he quickly pulled his head up and realized what exactly he just said. Eiro took notice of this, and his weird feelings inside of him welled up even more, “Alright, who are you? I’ve been feeling a bit weird about the the whole time, but why do I feel like telling you about things that don’t concern you? You just cast a spell just then, didn’t you?”

With a deep sigh, Eiro stood up and chose to just walk away from this. He had to deal with other things. If this ‘Light Elf’ was still trouble to Eiro once he managed to solve the storm issue and get rid of this weird, negative ability that made Eiro lose his memories, then he would just kill him, probably. But for now, it would only end up bothersome if he did.

“Oi, I’m talking to you. Tell me what you’ve been doing, and depending on your answer, you can go.”

“Hm… You sobered up pretty quickly there, didn’t you?” Eiro asked bluntly as he slowly turned around toward James, who just shook his head, “Shut it, I obviously wasn’t really drunk.”

With a dagger pointed toward Eiro, James stared deep into the Demon’s eyes. Or well, where they would be underneath the mask, at least. With a deep sigh, Eiro just turned around again, but the moment he did, James chose to attack Eiro to try and incapacitate him. Or at least to figure out if Eiro was really a Demon or not, as James was imagining.

The Dagger slid by Eiro’s side because the Demon simply moved his body out of the way subtly, and Eiro then proceeded to push his elbow into the Light Elf’s stomach. James was pushed back and immediately held onto Eiro’s cloak as he did. A piece of clothing was rather hard t o control compared to parts of one’s body, so Eiro didn’t manage to pull it out of the way quickly enough.

But luckily, all that happened was that part of Eiro’s left arm was revealed. And since his skin was currently rather dark in color, nearly black, it was rather easy for James to come to a quick conclusion. And that this dark-skinned person in front of him couldn’t be the same red-skinned demon as he had specifically heard about in reports.

But even then, James wasn’t going to let Eiro just go like this. He could feel a lot of magic from the being in front of him, too much to say that he simply had a large amount of mana within him. No, he had some sort of high-tier spell cast onto him, that was something that Eiro was practically sure of.

“Alright, what really are you? Tell me, what kind of spell are you using?” And as such, the rather straightforward James didn’t hesitate to question Eiro this time either. The Demon turned around with a glare underneath his mask, “I don’t believe this is any of your business, but I was tasked by his Majesty, the King Skyhart, to investigate this storm. If you do not believe me, here is the valid identification I received from him. His Majesty asked me not to flail this around everywhere, but here we are.” Eiro said bluntly. Luckily, Sarius managed to quickly help the Demon put a few thoughts in order, at least enough to come up with a good explanation as Eiro pulled out the brooch that he was given by Solomon some time ago that he didn’t really think of for a while now.

James looked at it and ripped his eyes open immediately, “You were asked by Solomon to…” He muttered quietly, and then took a step back, “I truly apologize for attacking you. This situation is really messed up, in this whole town I mean, so I’m kind of on edge.”

“Right. If you’ll excuse me, then.” The Demon pointed out, and then swiftly turned around to leave now. But just before he did, James stopped him again, “Wait. Let me help. I’m also someone that happened to get close to the King through different circumstances, and I’d like to help figure this out. My priority is finding the Demon I mentioned, but that’s pretty hard to do with this storm around. If we can at least get rid of the source of that disgusting feeling it’s giving me, that’d be fucking great!” James exclaimed, in a way that was far too enthusiastic than what Eiro was used to. Maybe this was the way that he would interact with Eiro if it weren’t for a certain few aspects in the past of those two that nearly made this impossible. After all, they did trust each other, and James did become someone quite important to him as well.

“Hm..?” Eiro muttered quietly to himself after those random thoughts crossed his mind unexpectedly. Somehow, from what James just said, the Demon made an automatic mental connection. He filled in the gaps, basically. The Demon managed to subconsciously figure out the weird feeling that he had about James just now.

He rediscovered that James had been part of his past, and especially what sort of past it was. Sure, there were plenty of things missing, but at least Eiro now had a person to connect to those empty feelings and concepts that were floating around Eiro’s mind for a while now. Well, at least for some of them.

The Demon’s heart started to race and his fusion with Sarius seemed to become a bit unstable as Eiro seemed to panic at the realization that he nearly forgot about such an important person in his life.

Sure, it was hard to call James a true ‘friend’ considering their complex relationship, but at the same time, their connection was stronger than friendship, and was still playing in the same ballpark. James was certainly important to Eiro, important enough to risk his life for in some situations. Same as with the others as well, although Eiro was trying his best not to think about all of that.

So that he wouldn’t forget any of this important information immediately again, Eiro of course wrote as much as he could down in his notebook.

“Hm? What’s that for?” James asked a bit confusedly and suspiciously, and Eiro slowly raised his head again, “Just noting down things. I’m slightly forgetful, so I must write down all important things that I can for the report for his Majesty. And having someone join me on my task is certainly important enough.”

With a light grin on his face, James nodded his head, “You’ve got it. Now, where are we gonna start?” The Light Elf asked. In Eiro’s mind, it was still weird how cooperational James was with him. As if he was still aware of part of the connection that Eiro and James had, but no specific memories, parts that he could still access despite not having any memories of Eiro to make use of at the moment. That was probably what James was referencing before, that weird ‘urge’ to tell Eiro more details than he initially intended to.

After all, James and Eiro didn’t keep any sorts of secrets from each other. The only one really was Eiro’s weird status and how he could assign stat points at will. Other than that, Eiro would say that the two knew everything about each other. Although currently, that was obviously a thing of the past.

‘Oi, the fuck are you doing? Letting a random guy come along.’ Sarius complained to Eiro mentally, who quickly replied with, ‘Shut it. I know him. I trust him.’

And after that far too short explanation, Eiro looked at James and finally answered the Light Elf’s question, “We will start by further analyzing this storm and this weird, ‘disgusting’ energy that is intertwined with it. That energy is a sort of magic, although I’m not directly allowed to choose to explain it to you right now. Magic needs an energy-source. In this case, it’s not a spellcaster, however, so we are looking for something inconspicous with a high concentration of magic hidden inside of it.”

After Eiro’s explanation, James slowly nodded his head, “Got it…” The Light Elf muttered quietly in thought, trying to figure out where exactly they could look for something like this while slowly rubbing his stomach.

“I apologize if I injured you somehow.” The Demon said bluntly, and James just looked at him and shook his head, “I attacked you in the first place, so who the fuck cares? Come on, we gotta look for that source of magic. I’mma guess that it’s supposed to be around here if you’re at this place to search for it, so I might have a good idea of where it could be.” James pointed out. Eiro raised his brows curiously about what James might be able to tell him.

The Light-Elf swiftly explained it to Eiro. At first he didn’t understand why exactly this place could be a possible place to put the conductor, since it simply felt out of place there, but soon the Demon understood James’ reasoning.

“Hm… It might be worth a try.” The Demon said bluntly, and James lightly grinned as he nodded his head, “Of course it is. Better than what you have until now, huh?”

With a slow nod, Eiro chose to not even reply. They didn’t have any more time to waste, after all.

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