258 If you will

Eiro stood at the side of the road and closely and attentively watched the people around him as they were on their way home in the heavy snow. And amongst those people who were suffering in the cold weather, subsequently decreasing the strength of their Life Force, was one figure that was practically overflowing with it after 'borrowing' some from Eiro as well.

Bavet, disguised as a random person pretending to fit into the crowd. Eiro had specifically increased the amount of Life Force placed into Bavet's eyes, and it seemed like in the form of a human, the slime was somewhat fine in this kind of weather. It seemed like some kind of extra effect after his evolution, that he wasn't as fully vulnerable to extreme colds anymore, as long as he was in a form that could withstand the weather, since he was literally changing his slime to flesh now.

Bavet had become capable of copying living beings to a level where it was impossible to distinguish between him and a regular person. Since part of his abilities was to copy the behavior of others as well, not even Bahlsen was able to pick Bavet out in the crowd, perfectly fitting in.

At some point, Bavet reached a point where he was outside of the Demon's visible range, but he was still able to sense him to an extent, especially because Bavet had some of his Life Force inside of him.

And so, the Demon just entered a random pub and acted like a normal customer together with Bahlse, while Bavet pretended to be a homeless person that had to stay out in the cold tonight as all the other people were clearing out the streets as the heavy snow picked up.

This was possibly one of the best nights for the Collector to act. There were no crowds around, and not even many guards were standing outside right now. In this area that was practically a freezing wasteland devoid of life, it would be relatively easy to pick out those people that had impressive amounts of Life in them. And even if they were inside of buildings, it was still a lot easier to kill someone while they were alone in their home compared to out in public places.

And while Bahlsen and Eiro were sitting in that random pub, an employee walked over to them, "So, you two gonna order anythin' or not? You've been sittin' here for about twenty minutes already."

"Just waiting out the snow for a little while." Eiro replied bluntly, and the employee looked at him with a sigh, "Listen, man, I get that the weather's shit and all, but we've got a business to run. The boss is a bit peculiar about that. But as long as you order something, anything, I can convince 'im to let you stay till the snow is over. So, will you have anythin'?"

Eiro turned his head over toward Bahlsen, who just smiled at the employee, "Of course, then I'll take a cup of Jasmin, if you will."

The employee looked at Bahlsen with a confused frown, and Eiro sighed, "Sorry, my friend's not from around here. We'll take two hot metheglin." Eiro said, and swiftly held up his left hand, showing two fingers to the employee since it was a bit loud in the pub right now.

"Comin' right up." The Employee said, and quickly turned around before heading off to the bar to get the orders. Bahlsen looked at Eiro, and before he could speak, the Demon already interrupted him.

"You know, tea's not that popular around here. At least not amongst commoners, some pretentious nobles maybe, but most people don't even know what tea tastes like. Hence, pubs don't serve shit like tea." Eiro explained bluntly, and Bahlsen raised his brows before slowly nodding.

"I see, that explains the reaction... But what exactly was metheglin again?" Bahlsen inquired curiously, and Eiro leaned back in his seat, "Mead flavored with herbs and spices. Mead's one of the few things that's bearable to be drunk hot around here, so everyone does. Metheglin's a pretty welcome variety for a lot of people as well. Figured it would be more to your taste than regular mead."

"Oh, right, right, that was it! It did sound familiar... Sorry, I'm somewhat forgetful, I've got such a huge influx of information that it's overwhelming sometimes. Ironic, huh? Considering that I used to work with memories..." He laughed wrily, "I'm sure you know what that's like, with your strong senses and all."

"Actually, I don't." Eiro replied immediately, "I have completely perfect memory. I can't access all my memories all at once, but it's pretty easy to call on specific memories if I try."

The Demon slowly turned his head and looked over at the employee that was returning with two big steins of steaming hot metheglin. Eiro quickly payed him, and the employee went on his way.

"So..." Bahlsen said, "How are we doing this? Wouldn't it be pretty weird if we don't drink?"

"Hm? Why wouldn't we drink?" Eiro asked with a frown, although Bahlsen obviously couldn't see it due to the Demon's mask. But it seemed like he understood from Eiro's tone of voice anyway, "Well, for one, we're in the middle of an investigation, so getting drunk isn't a great idea... And you'd kind of need to take off that mask to drink, right?"

Slowly, Eiro held his hand up to his mask, simply pressing down at the spots where his jaws meet. With a click, a small slit formed between the upper half of Eiro's mask, including his nose, and the lower half that was covering his mouth.

Still connected around the places where Eiro pressed down, the Demon could pull the mask down a bit and just slide it under his chin. This mask was something that Eiro specifically made for dealing with things related to the organization, so he added a few neat gimmicks in that he wanted to try out. This was one of them.

And one of the other neat gimmicks was the small pouch of seeds that was built into the very bottom of the mask, where Eiro was now able to use nature magic to start infusing his skin for a simple reason. Through Nature Magic, Eiro's skin became somewhat bark-like in texture and a lot darker than normal. And so, his rigid, roughed up red skin really just looked like a nasty burn-wound that was covering his whole face.

People around here knew not to pry about things like that, and masks weren't anything uncommon especially due to things like nasty injuries like Eiro had. Attacks from random monsters weren't all that uncommon, so a lot of people had parts of their skin burnt away by slimes, for example. Some might stare, especially when drunk, but as long as it looked somewhat convincing, very little people would end up asking.

And even if they did, after Eiro said he didn't want to speak about it, people would usually stop. Eiro did try this out a few times while infusing his skin with nature magic stones to have something like a provisionary disguise, just in case he needed it, like now.

Eiro took up the stein in front of him and held it to his lips before gulping a mouthful of it down his throat, "I can drink yours if you want. I have a Toxin Resistance skill. Just beginner grade, but it's enough for a few rounds of mead."

"...right, makes sense." Bahlsen said, simply accepting Eiro's explanation. He probably simply wasn't surprised anymore that Eiro had a wide array of skills available to him.

Well, it wasn't like that was all there was to it. Eiro was actually practicing something else right now. He was making specific parts of the mead in his body heat up to boil away the alcohol in it, and was then circulating the fumes in his stomach using air magic.

What Eiro was trying to test out was a process that he was actually trying to copy from Dragons. It was a mock-version of fire-breath.

Basically, the Demon was trying to figure out ways to create flames out of 'nothing' instead of having to use spark-snappers. In the middle of a fight, that was something rather inconvenient, after all.

And so, Eiro wanted to try and use something that was actually flammable. Obviously he wouldn't try igniting it right now, he was just keeping it for later. If he had to somehow use Nature Magic to make things he ate rot and create certain flammable gases at large concentrations, then Eiro didn't really mind. It was one of his reasons, a minor one, but nonetheless, why he wanted to get the Nature Magic skill, so that he could do this. Not only did it allow you to make things grow, but also cause them to rot to an extent, so Eiro wanted to be able to do both perfectly.

Like that, if he needed to, he could quickly swallow a seed, grow it into a plant in his stomach, and then cause it to rot immediately as if to create something like alcohol immediately so that he could find something to combust.

And of course... Flame Breath was something that most wouldn't expect a random person to do, and it would come in quite useful in situations when Eiro couldn't use his hands to pull out his spark-snapper.

In general, he was just trying to catch the Collector off-guard in any way possible.

And so, Eiro was drinking the mead and keeping most of the alcoholic fumes inside of his body. And all of a sudden, Eiro noticed something goin on outside around Bavet. Luckily Bahlsen was able to analyze the location-patterns of where the Collector looked for his victims already and was able to suggest this place.

Eiro immediately ran toward the door and pulled every part of his mask into the right place. He ran out the door into the snow, pushing two people out of the way as he was at it.

Immediately, the Demon ran through the thick snow toward where Bavet was, and there was a man wearing the exact clothes that the Collector did standing right in front of Bavet, just speaking to him. Eiro pulled out his dagger and was about to stab it through the side of the Collector's head, when all of a sudden, he noticed something.

"It's... It's not him." Eiro muttered quietly as he looked at the figure in front of him. They turned their head over toward Eiro. In the end, this man didn't even look remotely similar to the Collector, and he just had an empty, dumb stare on his face.

This person wasn't an Undead, so not a puppet created by the Collector, but... Somehow, this person was still under control of the Collector. While grinding his teeth in anger, Eiro just pushed his hand forward and grabbed the man by the throat.

"Where the fuck is he?" Eiro asked with a growling voice. The man stared back at Eiro with the same empty expression, but all of a sudden just started to grin madly, "Oh deary me, look who we have here? And before you mistake this for direct control, this is just something 'pre-recorded', if you will. I am nowhere around here. Rather, I am already on my way to my next puzzle piece. Luckily, I have found a nice, remote place that is basically a treasure chest filled with beings that brim of life!"

A cold shiver ran down Eiro's back as the man that was being controlled continued to speak, "Truly, these puzzle pieces were expertly raised by you, my dear friend."

The words that this man was using sounded weird to Eiro, somehow... not that there was magic infused into them, it was just that his choice of words was uncommon, and incredibly familiar to be just a coincidence. And then, it hit Eiro.

He twisted his body around and tightened his hand, ripping apart the throat of the man that was being controlled just now.

Instead of trying to figure out where the Collector was, Eiro was now trying to find Bahlsen.

Because he was nowhere to be seen within the whole range of Eiro's complete perception.