CHAPTER 5
TOWARD THE OPENING OF BATTLE
So after sending Gadora off to the Empire, it was time for some interrogating. No, not for Shinji and his friends. For Ramiris.
She’d said a few things that I just couldn’t let slide, and given that she wasn’t afraid to play pranks on me, I was sure she was hiding other things as well.
“Huh? N-no… No way. I’m, uh, not hiding anything…”
Ramiris fidgeted a bit. Clearly suspicious. She obviously had a secret. But just as I threatened her with no cake for the rest of her life, she began talking a mile a minute.
“What—what do you want to know, Captain?!”
Captain? Whatever. Better let that go without comment. I moved on with my questions.
“So Adalmann’s gotten a hell of a lot stronger since I last saw him, but…all right. I can accept that. But what about the other dudes with him? I didn’t expect Alberto to whip Shinji’s party pretty much solo, and I never heard anything about a death dragon. You haven’t been messing around with any other floors, have you?”
Alberto was now much, much more than just kind of a strong monster. He had the physical skills of a special-A Death Paladin and the technical skills to make full use of them. He was already keeping up with Hakuro as a death knight, so how the hell strong was he now?
“Well, Alberto was teaching that kid Arnaud, I think, right? So now they’re back down in the deeper floors, testing their strength—”
“Stop!”
I hurriedly put an end to this. Alberto teaching Arnaud? What was up with that? Arnaud was a squad leader in the Crusaders—I wasn’t sure anyone could teach him much. So why was he the one undergoing training? I just had no idea what Ramiris was talking about.
“Okay, um, well, after Hinata got all angry at Arnaud and the other paladins, they licked their wounds and tried their hand at the Dungeon one more time. The Demon Colossus was still under development back then, so they made it past Floor 70.”
“All right. And then?”
“And then those kids lost again!”
“Kwah-ha-ha-ha! And what a sight it was!”
Ramiris was clearly enjoying this; Veldora was nodding and laughing with glee. I’m sure it must’ve been hilarious.
Report. A record of battle is available.
Whoa, really?! Nice one, Raphael! I’ll save that for later, but in the meantime, let’s focus on Ramiris.
“So how far did Arnaud’s team make it this time?”
Probably the dragon rooms between Floors 96 and 99, I figured. There’s a bunch of floor effects there as well, so I think they’d give a lot of trouble to human explorers.
“Um, I think it was—”
“They were destroyed by the next boss,” Veldora interrupted. “Seeing them cry their eyes out as they fled was simply a joy to watch!”
Wow. Tacky. But…the next boss?
“Huh? Was the Floor 80 boss that strong?”
“Oh? Why d’you ask?” said Ramiris.
“I mean, Arnaud’s one of the Ten Great Saints. He was as good as Clayman and the ex–demon lords, wasn’t he?”
I spotted the answer to my question as I asked it. If you think about it, even Adalmann or Alberto could probably beat a pre-awakened Clayman. Maybe even post-awakened, actually, if that crazy death dragon was along for the ride.
“U-umm…,” Ramiris mumbled.
If I recalled correctly, I named Zegion the guardian of Floor 80. Did he finally evolve from his pupal form and reach adulthood? Veldora mentioned he was training him, and I didn’t really get what he meant by that, either. How do you train an insect monster? Whatever the Veldora-Style Death Stance was meant to be, I had no idea how Zegion was supposed to harness it. I let Veldora have his way because he seemed to be having fun and all, but maybe I should’ve put some more serious thought into it.
Zegion had used my own cells to heal his wounds and coat his outer shell in magisteel. Perhaps thanks to that, he had high speed and mobility, and he could also apparently summon his family. Treyni had signed off on everything, so I had no complaints…but the whole concept behind that was to fluster challengers with a quick, nimble insectoid boss after all those slow-moving golems.
“Hey, so what’s up with Zegion right now?”
I attempted to further interrogate the panicking Ramiris, but Veldora spoke first.
“Ah, my apprentice Zegion has undergone his complete transformation. Now, with the skills he inherited from me, he is a warrior without compare!”
“…”
“And what’s more, Zegion didn’t even need to lift a feeler against Arnaud’s party! They were trounced by the floor guardian on Floor 79!”
Now the picture was growing clearer. Arnaud met his match against Apito, the queen wasp serving as the boss on Floor 79. Between her hyperspeed and ultimate venom, not even the well-honed swords of Arnaud’s Crusaders could touch her. Then, as they told me, the whole party got stung a zillion times by Apito’s hivemates, and they ran away screaming.
Crazy. Just pile it on, won’t you?
“Tell me this stuff! I got a job to do, you know!!” I said, exasperated.
“I know, but it wasn’t just us! My master was ‘training’ that insect, too!”
“Wh-why you…! Accursed traitor!”
“But it’s not fair, Master! You’re acting like you had no part of it!”
“Nnngh…”
Yeah, I’m sure Veldora got involved. Anyone would, once they realized how much fun this was. Still, though, I felt kind of betrayed. All these people, getting to goof around all day behind my back… Maybe it was a mistake to ever let them handle this stuff.
I felt a twinge of regret now—but something still bothered me.
“Y’know, I’ve been wondering, Veldora—when you say you trained Zegion, what do you mean, exactly?”
He’s a bug, right? By “complete transformation,” Veldora doesn’t mean he went humanoid or something, did he?
It turned out my hunch was absolutely correct.
“Heh-heh-heh… So you finally noticed? You’ve realized just how wrong you are? I was having fun seeing you do that, so I didn’t say anything!”
What did I ever do to deserve this, Veldora…? They sure got me this time.
Delving into the Dungeon records, I had Raphael show me a few images. He was right. Zegion was now humanoid, all slender and chiseled. And…basically, he was Razul, that insectoid Shion beat over in Lubelius. He looked so much like that insanely powerful Razul, and thanks to that, he just exuded powerhouse vibes.
This rather unusual evolution gave him a chance to learn more battle moves—and as it turned out, the same was true of Apito. She had a shapely, feminine form, and looking at her, it dawned on me: I should’ve realized something was up when Hinata started coaching her. I thought it was just some mock warfare, but she really was training her. And thanks to Hinata’s expert battle training, Apito was incredibly refined in her moves. She had been training with Zegion as well, and her technical skills were also just as polished up.
Arnaud’s plastering was ample evidence of that, I suppose.
“So then Arnaud’s party decided to reevaluate themselves a little, they said…”
Going back to square one, they tackled the Dungeon once more, this time from the very first level. But one of the paladins met his end in Floor 60—at the lands of Alberto the Death Paladin, servant of Adalmann the Immortal King and (a few centuries ago) the strongest of all paladin warriors.
“And ever since then, you know, they’ve had their asses thoroughly kicked by Alberto.”
After whipping their asses the first time, Alberto had taunted them, saying “Paladin? More like pala-don’t!” That apparently really set off Arnaud, but even after busting out his Ether Break finisher, nothing worked on Alberto. The combination of a lifetime of sword skills and his new monster-based stats made it impossible for Arnaud’s party to keep up. His undead body never grew tired, and even if whole body parts were sliced off, he could still recover. It was cheating, really; if you didn’t hit the right elemental weaknesses, you just couldn’t beat him. Even worse, Adalmann had that Holy-Evil Inversion skill, which only added to his invincibility.
Really, I thought, Arnaud couldn’t be blamed for this. With all the magicules Adalmann’s team absorbed in the labyrinth, they had simply evolved into upper-level monsters, and Arnaud happened to challenge them right then. Bad timing, really. But think about it the other way—getting to cross swords with the strongest knight of a centuries-old era was an incredibly lucky opportunity to have.
And now, under Alberto’s direction, the Crusaders under Arnaud were rotating in and out of the Dungeon to train.
So Floor 60 had turned into something of a death trap while I wasn’t paying attention, but…
“What about the other floors, then?”
I could see where this was going. Adalmann and Zegion couldn’t have been the only ones transforming like mad down there. And I was right. Now, apparently, there was a new group in the labyrinth, a team consisting of nothing but the ultimate titans. They called themselves the Ten Dungeon Marvels, and really, I think they could give my cabinet a run for their money.
Adalmann was on the team, of course, as was his assistant Alberto. Apito, with her new moniker of Insect Queen, had joined the Marvel ranks, and apparently Zegion was now the highest ranked among them. And then we had Kumara—evidently, by taking the magical beasts in her nine tails and infusing them into her body, she could assume the form of an adult woman.
“It’s time to make the big announcement!” Ramiris shouted, and then she went over the Dungeon’s current situation and latest news.
Let’s start from the bottom up. Ramiris, keeping her promise to Milim, had carefully raised the four element-infused dragons, all of them successfully evolving into Dragon Lords—the result of being constantly bombarded by Veldora’s magicules. Thus we now had a Fire Dragon Lord, a Frost Dragon Lord, a Wind Dragon Lord, and an Earth Dragon Lord deep down. I can’t say I was too excited about knowing that, but those were the facts.
And that wasn’t all. The full rundown:
Floor 90 guardian: “Nine-Head” Kumara
Floor 80 guardian: “Insect Kaiser” Zegion
Floor 79 boss: “Insect Queen” Apito
Floor 70 guardian: “Immortal King” Adalmann
Floor 70 advance guard: “Death Paladin” Alberto
That, plus a bonus—Bovix and Equix as our Floor 50 guardians. They, sad to say, weren’t really Dungeon Marvels. Instead, they had inducted Beretta, the manager who made all of this work.
“Personally, I would love to palm off—ahem!—I mean, award this great honor to someone else…” Beretta carefully eyed Treyni and Ifrit—now known as Charys.
“Oh dear, I’m afraid I have the extremely important job of taking care of Lady Ramiris,” Treyni replied with a beautiful smile.
“Yes, and I am Sir Veldora’s only confidant. His care occupies all my attention.” Charys was pretty used and abused by Veldora, I felt, but I guess he liked it. Either way, neither were interested in any more work. Reminds me of a certain butler I know, I thought as I sighed.
“Sounds like you got a tough job, Beretta.”
“Oh, you sympathize, Sir Rimuru?!”
I nodded back, reminding myself just how much of a bond we shared.
As I did, I went over a few other things. First off, who exactly did the Ten Dungeon Marvels answer to? The Dungeon was a facility run by all of us, as both a hobby and a moneymaking venture. Much of it ran on Ramiris’s powers, and it’d never function correctly without Veldora’s energy. When considering this, I’d think Ramiris, as general manager, would also assume Ten Marvels leadership, but…
“Well, along those lines, I conducted interviews with everyone and adjusted things to their requests!”
Ramiris laid it all out for me. First, Beretta served Ramiris—no change there. The four Dragon Lords were also under Ramiris’s authority; they had a contract drawn up and everything, and since Dragon Lords are sentient, they were allowed to execute it.
Kumara had become good friends with the children and enjoyed life here a great deal, so I guess her gratitude for me has gone pretty wild. She had publicly declared that she was my pet, leaving Ranga in the dust. Zegion and Apito also took a liking to me, saying they’ll treat me as their lord. Adalmann, well, I was a god to him. This had rubbed off on Alberto, and his loyalty was now with me, through his boss. So those five were mine, so to speak.
Bovix and Equix, I figured, would be better off under Ramiris—they were more hired by the Dungeon than anything else. They appreciated it, I was told, but voiced a desire to serve under me instead. Which… Well, they’re both species who believe in power over anything else, so I bet with Ramiris, they totally judged that book by its cover.
“No, they didn’t! You named those two guys, remember? That’s more valuable to ’em than any salary they get, so they insisted!”
Ah. That kinda thing, huh? That makes me feel happy, actually. I’ll have to drop a few kind words next time I see them.
And so as I was watching those three imperial intruders earlier, I actually had a front-row seat to some pretty startling changes in the Dungeon. “Stunned into silence” is about the right way to put it, but really, it’s great to see our guardians get stronger. Still, all these unanticipated evolutions made me a little anxious—a bad habit for someone as timid as myself.
But enough of that. With the Ten Dungeon Marvels in place, an imperial attack would be nothing to worry about. I did inform them, however, to try to go a little easy on our challengers from the general public. Otherwise, I thought, it’d be pretty much impossible for your average dude to make it anywhere in there. Why would they want to take on a labyrinth with not one but several demon lord–class enemies inside?
I wanted to be sure Floor 100 was never breached, at minimum, but Veldora could see to that himself. As for the other floors? I’d like to let people hack their way down to Floor 80, at least. We took all this time building it, so I’d kinda like people to look at it. But we could think about that during peacetime.
After getting a rundown on the labyrinth’s current status, I went around to each floor guardian. I wanted to get a close look at them all, checking how they’d grown and evolved. The results were beyond my imagination. With this much fighting force, I couldn’t see how we could possibly lose to the Empire in here.
Then, a few days later, I finally got to experiment on our completed forest monitoring system.
We were seated in our Strategic Military Control Battle Command Center, or the Control Center for short. I talked over the name with Veldora and the gang, and we let our imaginations go wild…but now, I kinda regretted making it so long. I probably debated over it with the wrong people. Benimaru strictly called it the Control Center, so not too many people actually knew the entire name.
This was built next to Veldora’s personal chamber on Floor 100, and we set up a passageway to our normal strategy room as well. If we quarantined the surface city inside the labyrinth, this would serve as Tempest’s headquarters. In case of war, we were all set…but of course, I’d prefer if we never had to use it.
The results of our magic monitoring system were quite impressive. We had multiple large screens set up, the same sort we used for the battle tournament, and each one showed a different scene. Whether it was the Forest of Jura, our trade routes with the Dwarven Kingdom, or any other important site, we now had all the visuals we could care to monitor. We could even observe the sea routes in the Kingdom of Farminus, or the peaks of the Canaat Mountains, without any issue.
It operated in a really simple way. Using the physical magic Megiddo that I invented, the system subtly altered and reshaped a large, lens-shaped body of water suspended in the stratosphere, projecting an expanded image of a given target point. Reflecting this image let us transmit its data, like a video. Consulting with Moss, I figured out how to use my own replications, deployed across our territory, as magic invokers. They were connected to me via Dominate Space, producing a data link that was perfectly synced up at all points. These replications were super-tiny in size and had no self-consciousness, so they wouldn’t consume energy unless I turned my attention to them. Transporting them over to a given surveillance point was nontrivial, but Soei, Moss, and the rest of their team put in a great effort.
Overall, it was a great system that operated at a low cost. I named this physical magic Argos, the Eye of God.
The output we were currently seeing on-screen was in high resolution, following some Raphael-provided image processing. This let us keep abreast of things from our nice, warm Control Center. This was some really amazing magic. Everyone else was jazzed about it, too—especially Diablo, but I won’t go into that.
With this monitoring system complete, I now realized that it provided another key perk. It made it possible to position a Megiddo spell at any point in the images we saw in the Control Center. I tried it out myself, and the results were amazing—I didn’t think it’d actually work, so I just lobbed a shot out at Gobta’s feet while he was training in our town’s main square. He leaped straight up in surprise, and I don’t think I’ll forget the face he made for a while to come. (I did yell at him—“You let your guard down, dumbass!”—but I didn’t think he was really at fault.)
My Megiddo spell had also improved. It had already been optimized once by the Great Sage, but it looked like Raphael wasn’t quite satisfied. After some more scrupulous enhancements, it had developed a system where I could keep multiple lens “satellites” in the air at once. Paired with Argos, we could even keep Megiddo activated during the nighttime—it wasn’t quite as powerful, but we could successfully reflect light between satellites to collect images.
Honestly speaking, I was kinda wondering whether we weren’t devoting our efforts to the wrong things. We used a high-level spirit to actually generate these lenses, so they’d stay up as long as I kept their magicule supply intact. Raphael handled all the tricky calculations, so everything was super-easy to control—and since it didn’t consume anything during daytime hours, we could run it even harder, taking in more light and heat energy and launching Megiddo shots like heat rays.
The sheer scope of these improvements blew my mind. At this rate, I could wipe out a human army without even having to lift a finger.
Upon confirming our experiment’s success, I returned to my office. Not long after, showing impeccable timing, Shuna came in and said I had a visitor.
I may not look it, but I entertain a lot of guests—really, that’s the majority of my work. Beyond that, there’s magic development, brainstorming fun new products, and assigning the right people to the right jobs. That and labyrinth administration, helping Mollie out with stuff… A lot. All work needs an aspect of play to it, after all. But anyway, handling visitors is the most important part of my job, and I try to take it seriously.
The reception room Shuna guided me to already contained Shinji’s trio, waiting nervously for me. They were officially going to accept asylum in Tempest, and over the past few days, I’d been grilling them for all their info. This was entirely on a volunteer basis, of course, not an interrogation—they were just being interviewed in different rooms. I let them use their free time however they wanted, so I was sure they’d have time to work out their future plans—and that was what they were there to tell me about that day.
“So have you decided what you’ll be doing?”
Shinji’s band had trouble deciding whether to find an outfit in Tempest to work for or become freelance adventurers instead. If they kept up adventuring, they could tackle the labyrinth and continue being pretty popular, wealthy figures—but on the other hand, now that they knew the limits of their strength down there, there wasn’t much potential for growth. Our Demon Colossus was stationed on Floor 60, but it seemed likely Shinji’s party would have serious trouble against it—and even if they beat that guy, Adalmann’s terrible trio was just ten floors down.
It was a dead end no matter how you sliced it, and I could understand if they didn’t want to bang their heads against that wall the rest of their lives. Seeing that wall for themselves pretty much tanked their motivation for the job. It was good money, for sure, but wouldn’t it turn into a boring rut after a while?
And really, Adalmann and his friends had grown way stronger than I planned for. It wasn’t even funny. I never thought they’d grow—or evolve, I suppose—that much, and there wasn’t much I could do about that. But whatever. Let’s just forget about it—and let’s not worry about what the Dungeon’s other challengers would think, either.
So would they find jobs elsewhere in Tempest? I’d be assigning them a spot based on their talents, and it’d still provide a guaranteed, stable life for them. But with war against the Empire coming up, I was sure they were worried about getting swept up in that somehow. I had no interest in forcing them, but I couldn’t guarantee they’d never get involved, either. Better keep from saying too much. I’d just wait to see their decision.
“Right, so after the three of us discussed it, Sir Rimuru, we decided that we want you to let us work here in Tempest. We heard about how Lord Gadora would be serving you, and so we’re hoping we can live and work here as well.”
Shinji looked nervous. The other two solemnly nodded; I guessed they were all on the same page.
“All right. In that case, welcome home.”
“Thank you very much!”
“We’ll do our best here!”
“…I’ll work hard for you, sir.”
And thus Tempest’s population increased by three.
Next came jobs.
“So I’m gonna have old man Gadora work as a manager on Floor 60,” I explained. “He’ll research the Demon Colossus, and at some point in the future, I plan to have him possess it.”
That old geezer had a serious thirst for knowledge, and he was super-enthusiastic about the idea. The moment he set his eyes upon the Demon Colossus, he almost started doing a dance right on the spot. Right then he was in the hands of Adalmann, but maybe I could let him be the guardian of Floor 60 later on.
“Now, you guys don’t want to join the war, right?” I asked the trio.
“Um, right,” replied Shinji, looking a bit reticent. “We know some people on the other side, so if possible…”
In that case, instead of hiring them on in my government, I felt it was better to assign them research work in the labyrinth. So I decided to introduce them to Ramiris.
Bounding our way through the Dungeon, we reached Ramiris’s laboratory shortly.
“Hey, Ramiris, you think you can find jobs for these guys in your lab?”
“Ah, Rimuru! You mean the kids from before?”
“Right, yeah.”
Ramiris had been looking for personal assistants, but it was hard to find anyone qualified. I couldn’t let researchers from other nations become Ramiris’s playthings, but the less intelligent monsters wouldn’t be able to keep up with her pie-in-the-sky ideas. She had Deeno, yeah, but he wasn’t enough to put my mind at ease. But now we had Shinji’s trio, and I couldn’t think of a better fit.
“Whoo-hoo! My name’s Ramiris. You guys interested in becoming my new assistants?”
“Umm…” Shinji didn’t know how to react. I’m not sure he realized who Ramiris was.
“Oh, fantastic! Look, Shinji! A real fairy!” Marc shouted excitedly. Maybe it was his first time seeing one? I don’t know how much time he had spent in this world, but if a fairy made him this worked up, he must’ve been a pretty purehearted guy.
“So you see, I’m looking for some capable assistants. I’ll pay you for it, too. Whaddaya think? We got some major personnel shortages around here, and Rimuru said that fully educated otherworlders are totally the time-saving solution!”
You didn’t have to say all that, Ramiris. It’s true, though—they’ve got technical skills, flexible minds, and can jump right into the world. I really hoped they’d be interested in taking this on.
“…Well, I’ll do it. Research seems a lot more peaceful.”
Zhen’s certainly honest. And I guess he was the tipping point for Shinji.
“In that case, by all means!”
Ramiris happily flitted around in the air, sticking out her (nonexistent) chest proudly.
“Hmph! Looks like you guys got a lot of potential. Well, all right! Passing grades for all of you! But you’re gonna have to follow all my orders, okay?!”
The way she can change her attitude on a moment’s notice always surprised me. Where was all the awkwardness from before? It was certainly in character for her, at least.
Leaving the dumbfounded Shinji and his friends in the dust, Ramiris quickly began laying out her offer. Their salary would be three gold coins a month, thirty-six per year, along with bonuses. Of course, Ramiris tended to pay her staff based on her own whims—kind of like myself—so I wouldn’t rely too much on that bonus. It sounded like Ramiris was offering them room and board, though. I was sure she expected them to use my own dining hall, but I didn’t mind that.
So Shinji and his group had their immigration arrangements settled in short order.
A few more days passed. The gang quickly got used to their new workplaces; now they were serving as Ramiris’s right hands in the lab.
I saw no problems there, but now Gadora was a concern. I hadn’t had any contact with him since he left for the Empire. He was a stubborn old man, I knew, so I figured he was all right…but I was starting to get worried. I really wished he’d drop me a line.
That thought was lingering as I held a briefing with Benimaru in the Control Center. Video data from my Argos system was on the large monitor. Every viewpoint was clear. I wanted to collect data from within the Empire as well, but for now, I was satisfied with video from our military borders. From those feeds, we could see large numbers of soldiers gathered, keeping a careful watch over the area. Tensions were always high over there.
“No moves today, it looks like.”
“Not at all, no. But isn’t this magic so useful, Sir Rimuru? This must’ve been what you were spending so much time researching lately, isn’t it?”
We were all alone today, so Benimaru was less formal than usual. I preferred keeping it casual like this, actually, but Benimaru was back to his usual stodgy, stuffy self whenever other people showed up. Not around Soei or Diablo, though. We all had a “partners in crime” thing going that I liked, and sometimes we’d all head over to Englesia to go drinking together.
“Exactly! And the most wonderful thing about this magic is the innovation behind the idea. It offers tremendous effects at a low energy cost. Its usefulness speaks for itself, and the complexity of the calculations behind it ensures nothing goes to waste, like a fine work of art. And that’s why—”
“Enooooough!! Once you start bragging, you never stop, so can you do that when I’m not around, maybe?”
This always happens when I let my guard down a little. Diablo immediately starts extolling my praises—it drives me up the wall. Yes, my magic’s really great and all, but it’s really Raphael doing all the hard work. I don’t see it as my own skill set, so I couldn’t help but feel a bit awkward.
“He’s right, Diablo. Restrain yourself a little, or you’ll cause trouble for Sir Rimuru.”
“Nonsense. How can you say that, Benimaru? That’s hardly the case, is it, Sir Rimuru?”
“No, Benimaru’s right. It’s always Rimuru this, Rimuru that with you. You need to tone it down!”
I had to make myself clear with Diablo. It made him collapse on the floor, a shocked look on his face, but that was no big deal.
When I heard Diablo was a Primal Demon or some kinda freaky thing like that, I wasn’t sure what I was gonna do…but if you think about it, he’s always been a weirdo from the start. Even Guy had trouble dealing with him. Try to take him seriously, and you’ll just make a fool of yourself. Now that I knew that, I was done messing around.
“Heh…heh-heh-heh-heh… Yes, Sir Rimuru. Well done. Dealing such emotional damage to me so easily…”
“I’m telling you to stop that!”
You see? He never learns. Going a little hard on him is the perfect way to balance it.
But our wholesome little moment came to an end after a sudden report from Ramiris.
(Rimuru, someone just teleported directly into the labyrinth! Based on its signature, I think it’s that old man you befriended!)
(Got it. I’ll head right over to Floor 70.)
I stood up. That alone made Benimaru and Diablo realize something happened—I appreciated that. So I gave them a quick rundown.
“Well, Gadora’s back, but it sounds like something’s up with him. I’m gonna go check it out.”
“Absolutely,” Benimaru replied. “I will stay on alert here, then.”
“I’ll escort you, Sir Rimuru.”
“Thanks.”
It was times like these when I could rely on Diablo. If only he always acted like that…but no need to dwell on it. Diablo was a talent but subject to just the worst swings in behavior. It saddened me a bit as we headed for Gadora’s personal chamber.
We found him in there—in fine shape, as well, despite my concerns.
“Phew! I thought I was a goner for a moment,” he said, not looking like he encountered anything more dangerous than a stubbed toe. Adalmann’s group was there with us; Ramiris and Veldora showed up later but left after they saw Gadora was okay.
“So what happened?”
“Well, I tell you, I went to the Imperial Council and argued against the war there, but I couldn’t tip the trend away, sadly. I expected as much, so I decided to go to Emperor Ludora one last time and see if I couldn’t appeal to him directly.”
He made the request for a meeting, which was accepted and scheduled for today. But inside the imperial palace, he said, he was stabbed by someone. This happened not even ten minutes ago. That definitely wasn’t all right; I felt guilty for asking.
“Oh… Right. I gave you a Resurrection Bracelet.”
“Ha-ha! Lady Ramiris’s powers are truly amazing. They saved my life, in fact. I thought something like this might happen, so I set up a return spell in advance.”
Judging by how healthy and unstabbed he was, I figured it was something like that. Pretty smart idea. If he could instantly teleport himself back to the labyrinth, the Resurrection Bracelet would save his life, no matter how badly he was hurt. Seeing a real-life example like this reminded me all over again just how effective Ramiris’s abilities were.
Still, though, Gadora’s a pretty nimble guy himself. Setting up spells in advance like an alarm… He taught those tricks to Razen as well, apparently, and I’d want to practice that later on. I had Hasten Thought, too, and combining it with this delay thing could produce some even bigger results.
“Who attacked you, then?”
There weren’t too many people in our nation who could kill Gadora. He was always on his guard, keeping up a pretty stiff magic defense, and I didn’t think he’d fail to spot a sneak attack in time, but…
“Well, the assassin managed to avoid my detection before they struck, so I wasn’t able to see exactly who it was. There is a suspect in my mind, but I must admit, it’s a rather hard-to-believe one…”
He showed me his back; there was a straight tear in his robe. His body was completely healed, but his clothing was still in the same condition. The tear was corroded in spots, too, so it clearly wasn’t just a physical attack.
“A single stab to the heart from behind, huh?”
“Your defenses were destroyed by magic, it would seem,” Diablo added. “Quite an interesting skill to use…”
It had piqued Diablo’s interest, and if so, this was no amateur assassin we were dealing with. I was sure the Empire had someone capable of killing me—maybe it was Gadora’s attacker, even, but I ought to have assumed there was more than that.
Gadora himself didn’t seem confident enough about his hunch to name a suspect, but he wanted to do some investigating, so I’d leave that to him. I didn’t think he was lying, and he honestly seemed perplexed about the whole thing. I wasn’t about to trust him immediately, but I figured I’d wait and see what happened.
“Well, I’m glad you’re all right, at least. It certainly shows us that the Empire shouldn’t be trifled with. Let’s all try to be a little more careful.”
“You are exactly right, Sir Rimuru,” Diablo agreed. “No need to risk our necks further with them. I am sure there is little new information to find, regardless.”
Gadora nearly died over the info he got for me, and I had to be satisfied with that. So after a few more kind words, I let him brief me on what he found.
As the old man put it, the Empire was making concrete moves toward war.
Whenever the Empire opened hostilities against another nation, they never bothered issuing a formal declaration of war. The emperor was defined to be the sole, unique presence that mattered, and they didn’t even recognize the existence of other countries. That, of course, was lip service; they had diplomatic relations with the Dwarven Kingdom, for one, and they didn’t meddle in their sovereign territory.
If the Empire decided to invade, it only did so after careful, prudent preparation. They didn’t declare war; they sent a letter advising the other side to surrender, and only once. If you followed it, fine; if not (as the stories went) the war was on, and they’d no longer show any mercy.
You really couldn’t get much haughtier as a nation—or more arrogant. If you’re gonna be such a bother, guys, don’t expect to make any friends in international society, okay? Not that they participated in it anyway. They hadn’t ratified any of the international law enacted by the Council of the West, so once they started a war, all bets were off. Post-defeat agreements? Prisoner handling? Prohibited actions during war? They followed none of those, part of why the Western Nations feared the Empire so much.
Which…yeah, I can see why. At this rate, they might try to justify the mass killing of civilians—and if you lost in war against the Empire, that meant losing everything. I doubted the word reparations was in their vocabulary—everything belonged to the Empire, so the losing nation would lose all their rights. If you wanted to reason with them, you had to at least fight them to a draw. We definitely couldn’t let up right then. We had to go in strong and cut out the root of all this evil.
Now that we knew the Empire’s direction, we switched gears into our own wartime proceedings. Our Control Center would now become a strategic headquarters—just a formality, really, but still an important one. Benimaru and Soei would be on standby there at all times, the latter using his replications to fan across the region for spy ops. That way, we wouldn’t have to rely solely on our Argos network, and with Moss’s assistance, he should be able to get some pretty accurate intel.
At this point in time, we had a pretty decent advantage.
Basically, in this world, war didn’t really begin until one army encountered the other. You could use scouts and long-range magic to try detecting enemy movements in advance, but conventional wisdom called for that only when the two sides were pretty close to bumping into each other anyway. The concept of information warfare was a thing here, but there wasn’t another nation on this planet with an enemy-monitoring program as thorough as ours. That’s what Hinata and Gadora told me, too, so I wasn’t imagining it. It was the golden truth.
“This… Are we seeing this from the air…?” Gadora asked, incredulous.
“Heh-heh-heh-heh…,” Diablo chuckled. “This is a product of Sir Rimuru’s magic. It requires merely a minuscule amount of magicules to trigger magic from beyond the stratosphere. Only a small number of people could ever detect this magic in motion. One would need a danger-prediction ability on the level of Ultra-Instinct.”
“Y-yes… Indeed. I’m fairly confident in my own magic detection skills, but this just seems so natural. I never imagined it was the work of any caster at all…”
“Precisely! Even an Arch Demon well versed in magic would overlook such a low-level spell. Truly wonderful. Don’t you agree?”
“I do, I do! This magic is simply mind-boggling!”
Diablo, for some reason, was now bragging to Gadora with the smuggest of grins. The old sorcerer was getting more and more excited as he concurred with each of Diablo’s boasts.
“Shion?”
“Right away!”
Diablo was going to be nothing but a distraction, so I ordered Shion to isolate him in another room. Now that things were quiet, we got to the business at hand.
This high-altitude monitoring system was just beyond cheating. I mean, think about it. Until this moment, we spent so much time fretting about which route they’d attack from, but now that seemed like a joke. We had a full video feed of not only the most likely routes but our entire border with the Empire, so we’d see everything from the moment they kicked off. It was like playing chess with a blindfolded opponent—they’d only know where their pieces were, and unless you were a real beginner, you wouldn’t even lose to a professional. They weren’t just missing a couple pieces—they were at a near-total disadvantage.
And of course, war has no rules anyway. If you win, you played it right.
Having the other side plot an invasion of our territory was scarier than I thought. It meant you’d have war on your own land, with no previous agreements. But I put up one rule in advance:
“No touching civilians!”
We, of course, would strictly prohibit ourselves from striking first. If we declared an end to hostilities, we’d refrain from attacking any further. I trusted that nobody would go against this and break the rules.
Now I had the cabinet of Tempest here in the Control Center. Benimaru was our commander, Hakuro our chief adviser. Rigurd was there, along with the heads of the three powers of government serving under him—Rugurd, Regurd, and Rogurd. Shuna and Lilina led the female contingent; they were alongside Rigur, our top behind-the-scenes man, as well as Kaijin and Kurobe. I had Vester and Mjöllmile in there as consultants; Gobta and Gabil had reported in as army generals, and Geld had taken time off from his work to show up as well. Finally, I had invited Testarossa and her two demoness friends—and I let Diablo in, too, figuring he had learned his lesson. He was standing amicably in his usual spot alongside Shion.
I also decided to bring Gadora and Shinji’s gang in as witnesses…and a bit later Masayuki, that font of morale for all of humanity, came in.
“Wait a minute. Why am I the ‘font of morale’ for anything?! Can you stop spouting crap about me like that? Ugh!”
Oops. Guess I was airing my thoughts out loud again. Masayuki looked pretty huffy about it…and for some reason, Gadora was staring right at both of us. Maybe something caught his eye, but I’d ask about it afterward.
That left two more people to mention—Veldora and Ramiris, our support staff. Beretta, Treyni, and Charys were also on standby in one corner. That was about all of them.
Giving a few pets to Ranga on the ground next to me, I looked around at my seated audience.
“I don’t need to tell you all why you’re here today. We’re going to hold a conference to work out our opposition to the Empire. Benimaru and I have come up with an outline of our strategy, but I want to hear your feedback on it as well. Don’t be afraid to speak up at any time.”
“““Yes, Sir Rimuru!”””
So the conference began.
Turning toward the screen, I saw it display crowds of imperial forces on the move—these metallic vehicles, whirring along as they ran on treads. They were tanks, and from what the image showed, there were around two thousand of them.
Whoa! I thought when I saw that. What are tanks doing there?!
Flustered, I asked Shinji’s group for some explanation. Through them, we learned that the Empire was using the knowledge—and science—of otherworlders to develop modern weaponry. They had internal combustion engines that ran on magicules instead of oil, charging up their energy through air circulation—allowing for cooling and magicule supply at the same time. A pretty well-thought-out system, in my opinion. These tanks were also pretty versatile; in terms of functionality, I’d say they easily outclassed the best tanks in our old world.
Gadora told us that the Empire analyzed a magical control reactor found in some ancient ruins and reworked them for modern times. They were also building up a supply of magic stones for fuel purposes, relying on the natural magicule supply for normal operation and the stones during battle. They could run at up to sixty-five miles an hour, and bad roads were no problem for them—they could even float in the air, a little above the ground, although it cost energy.
Frankly, I felt, we had fallen behind. If only we had worked on these… It frustrated me. Tanks, in a world of knights… It never even occurred to me. And I had trains and everything! I was one step away!
…But would you really develop tanks before cars? I didn’t think so. I mean, I’d need to think things over carefully before I even put cars into the mix. They’d be useful, but it was kinda like playing with fire. I was sure everybody would want one, but I didn’t think it’d be possible to dole out one to each person. We couldn’t tap our energy supply dry, so there was bound to be the haves and the have-nots.
It was a better idea, I thought, to develop our cities so you didn’t need cars. With trains, after all, things were a lot more convenient already. But maybe once our rail network was built out, I could develop luxury cars as a kind of hobbyist thing for the rich? Something you’d wanna strive to own someday. It’d give people something to dream about, and I figured something high-end enough to be a status symbol would be all right.
But that could wait until the war was over. After all, the tanks weren’t the only surprise.
They even had flying ships. It was hard to keep from shouting out, Are you kidding me?!
Those things would make transportation so much easier. If you used them in war, your supply problems were a thing of the past. If we could’ve taken air superiority for our own, I would’ve been a lot more optimistic. We need to develop those, I thought, but it just wasn’t too realistic yet. Flying airships weren’t something you could wrap up in a day. I think it was doable with enough time, but no development project ever went that smoothly. Every project took shape only with a trial-and-error process.
On this point, I really had to applaud the Empire’s R & D department. And hopefully nobody would chide me for thinking, Boy, it’d be nice if we could seize one of those intact…
But…man. If only I’d thought a bit more outside the box with my orders for things…but never mind. No point gnashing my teeth over it. But it was something for the future. Once this war was done with, I definitely wanted to start developing some more neat, innovative stuff.
So we saw the current state of the Empire.
I had been briefed on it in advance, but a lot of people in the Control Center were finding out for the first time. They gazed at the screen, mouths agape, not bothering to hide their surprise.
“The total size of the invasion force is estimated to be one million! I guess you can see that, but…I think the Empire’s military has been a surprise for us all, but we still have the advantage in this conflict, so don’t worry.”
The most important element of war was how well you could estimate the opponent’s fighting power. On that point, we pretty much stripped the enemy bare.
Raphael told me that the total count was a million, and that was a crazy number to deploy, but I didn’t think it spelled doom for us. That was simply how much leeway we had to work with.
“Gadora has informed me that the imperial military is composed of three major divisions. One of them is called the Armored Division, and that includes the tank force we see here. They call it the Magitank Force, and we can assume it’s the main source of their power.”
I explained the inner workings of the Magitank Force to everyone. But that wasn’t all of Gadora’s info. He had participated in their strategy meetings for me, and he told me everything that was covered. The Empire knew Gadora had deserted by now, so there was a chance they changed their plans, but I was sure the main gist was the same.
They had Yuuki over there, after all, and Yuuki was apparently angling to stage a coup of the Empire. I was sure he was encouraging the other division commanders to not worry about the surely dead Gadora—that ought to mess them up. Plus, as Gadora told me, the commander of the Armored Corps, a man named Caligulio, had taken the bait I laid out for him. He believed the Dungeon was full of resources and treasure, and he wanted to seize it before anyone else could. If so, I’m sure he wouldn’t want to change out the whole operation at this point, so chances were good that he’d take up Yuuki’s suggestions. Working on assumptions is a dangerous move, but seeing how Caligulio ran his force, it’d be easy to surmise what his army wanted.
Once I wrapped up my rundown, Gobta was the first to speak.
“Ummm, my force is stationed in the lodging town, but are they gonna be fightin’ those tank thingies?”
Very observant. In fact, for someone appointed a commander, this was a life-or-death question. Considering his long, documented history of sleeping through meetings, Gobta was showing some real growth. Sometimes, a guy needs a little responsibility to show his true colors—
“Isn’t that obvious? The job of your First Army Corps is to smash up this tank force!”
As my emotions got the better of me, Benimaru gave him the news. The shock made Gobta sway in his seat.
“Nobody told me…”
Yeah, I get it.
“So… So you mean we need to defend the town with our lives?” he asked, a look of death already on his face. I smiled back at him.
“Of course not! Based on what I know about the tanks’ abilities, I think you guys could win if you took the right approach, but who knows how many losses you’d take doing it… That, and defending’s always harder than attacking, and your Green Numbers without any battle experience are gonna be pretty fat targets for them. So no, it’s not a ‘to the death’ thing.”
I was trying to calm him down. Hakuro, who I assigned to support Gobta, was nodding at this; he must’ve caught my drift.
“Okay, so what are we gonna do?”
“That is the job of a general to work out…but I shouldn’t expect that from you first thing. Benimaru, if you could?”
Yes, I was lording it over him, but honestly, I was just as much a military amateur as Gobta. I didn’t know much about strategy, so I was leaving the nitty-gritty to Benimaru. But then, I enjoyed making life easier for myself. If Gobta could work hard and mature for me, I’d be able to kick back that much more.
So, hoping Gobta would put in a diligent effort, I listened to Benimaru alongside him.
“All right, Gobta. The lodging town’s a vital base for us, but losing it wouldn’t be a major concern. If they tear it down, we can rebuild it; if they capture it, we can take it back. The problem is the potential for civilian casualties, but Sir Rimuru has taken care of that. He’s already sent out the order for everyone to evacuate to the capital of Rimuru.”
Mm-hmm. The moment I knew the Empire was on the move, I had them begin the evacuation. It’ll take time, I’m sure, but it ought to wrap up before the Empire arrives.
“Oh, right, there weren’t a lot of folks around there…”
“I’m sure there weren’t. Your job’s to help anyone left in there evacuate to safety. After that, you’ll be heading here.”
Benimaru pointed out a spot on the large map we had spread out on the conference table. It was the Armed Nation of Dwargon—in particular, its central city.
“Huh?”
“Look at this image. The imperial force intends to split up and invade from several routes. Some of their units are already in the Forest of Jura, but the tank force hasn’t moved yet. Based on the direction of their advance, they’re clearly following the foothills of the Canaat Mountains. It’s not as thick with trees there, so the force won’t get bogged down as much.”
“Oh… Um, okay…”
“You don’t get it, do you? Ah well. Anyway, your mission is to defend the Dwarven Kingdom.”
As he spoke, Benimaru moved a peg representing Gobta’s force into the Dwarven Kingdom. Then he took another one out, symbolizing the dwarven armed forces, and placed it next to Gobta’s.
“You’ll be fighting together.”
“Ohhh…!!”
Now Gobta got it. His reaction was a mix of surprise and excitement.
This was another operation inspired by Gadora’s information; Gazel already gave it his blessing. As per our agreement, I informed him that the Empire was aiming at the Dwarven Kingdom—and as I promised him, I declared that we’d send him backup. Gazel, to his credit, had picked up on the Empire’s suspicious behavior; they had repeatedly asked for permission to march through. He was starting to get sick of constantly refusing them, but he could read between the lines—he knew they’d lose their patience and get moving eventually.
My offer was welcomed by him, and it’d give us a lot of benefits as well. We could always rebuild the lodging town if it was destroyed, but as we saw it, the Empire wouldn’t go out of their way to pillage it if no fighting occurred there. If we could get it back soon enough, I saw no problem with abandoning it for now.
“The Empire’s traveling through such a conspicuous spot because they wanna convince us they’ll invade there. With this much of a show, anybody would notice it.”
“Oh, so it’s one of those ‘show of force’ things?”
Damn, Gobta. Grasping the fancy concepts and everything. He must’ve been studying a little bit. I was impressed.
“That’s right. This route they’re taking is on the border between Dwargon and Tempest. Both countries are going to notice them; it’s a great way for them to gauge our moves. If it looks like we’re gonna meddle with them, they can use that as a pretext to start attacking. We’re forbidden from striking first, of course, so we’d start with a warning. Do you understand so far?”
“Yep.”
“Now, if we don’t make any moves, the imperial force will cross the Great Ameld River and reach a point that overlooks the main entrance to the Dwarven Kingdom. That’s a broad, grassy area without any trees, the perfect place to deploy an army.”
“Uh-huh…”
“Once they get that far, King Gazel’s not going to stay silent. He’ll face up to them with his own forces and try to negotiate. And it’s the same way with us. The Emperor will make enemies out of us and the kingdom at that point.”
Benimaru moved the pegs around the map to demonstrate.
“Sir Gadora said that the emperor’s wary of being surrounded by the dwarven and Tempestian armies, but as long as they cover this point, that can’t happen. Even if the other side stages a sneak attack from here, it wouldn’t mean anything tactically.”
A surprise attack involves striking the enemy when its guard is down. If the enemy expects it the whole time, it was not only meaningless, but it could be harmful.
“And so instead of that, we’ll assault them from the start. We’ll go right up, and we’ll smash them!”
Benimaru tapped Gobta’s peg against the Empire’s.
“Ohhhh!!”
Gobta sounded impressed. None of my other advisers seemed against it, but what do they think about our forces’ size difference?
“Third Army Corps General Gabil!”
“Sir!”
“Your role is to guard the evacuating residents. Watch from the skies for stragglers or people in trouble and help them out as needed.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Once you guide them to safety, you’ll travel over to Gobta to support him. If the timing works out, you’ll reach him before the Empire can.”
“Our force is the swiftest in all of Tempest. I promise you we will make it in time!”
Gabil looked confident enough about it, but realistically speaking, it’d be tough. I intended to have the trains running full speed to get the residents evacuated, but moving tens of thousands of people took time, and the Empire had frightening mobility.
Based on our calculations (which factored in their legion magic as well), we predicted that their army could advance a mind-blowing forty miles in a day. Right then, the Empire was stopped against the border. From there to where they planned to open hostilities, there were around 930 miles of terrain to cover. In about twenty more days, the imperial force would reach their destination. This dizzying marching pace was possible because each of their soldiers had undergone body enhancement surgery—or something like that. This apparently let them stay on the move for a week without food or drink, so their maximum fighting speed was even faster than that.
The tanks, meanwhile, could go around six or seven miles an hour without an external supply, and since atmospheric magicules were available day and night, they could take advantage of that to resupply themselves more fully when resting. No point exhausting your force before the war even began, after all. Gadora’s guidance along those lines seemed sound enough, so Benimaru and I used his assumptions for our calculations.
“…Thanks to that, the Empire could arrive at this point sooner than we expect. I don’t want anyone here to be caught by surprise!”
Upon closing that subject, Benimaru moved right on to the next one.
“So this is where the Empire will break out their main army, but as Gobta said, this is mainly a show of force—in other words, a feint. Their real breakout teams are going to move toward here!”
He took out some differently colored Empire pegs and spread them around the Forest of Jura. Their plan was to make us think the tanks were their main force, then place the brunt of their troops elsewhere. This was all plain as day in our monitors, so I couldn’t say the idea really wowed us.
“Now, even if things expand past what we’re expecting over here, we still have Geld guarding this terrain! Geld, I want you to call your forces back from their stations as quickly as you can.”
“Understood. I’ve already sent the Thought Communication. All my forces will gather up shortly.”
Benimaru and Geld were certainly on the same page; just a few words, and everything was set. I knew I could rely on him.
Now Benimaru looked back down at the map. “These forces are likely going to advance through the forest, trying to stay hidden. Unfortunately, Sir Rimuru’s Argos monitoring magic can’t reveal everything happening under the forest canopy. That’s where Soei comes in.”
Soei nodded and stood up.
“The forest is lush with tree cover and difficult to monitor from above. Even if we deploy all our agents, there’s too much ground to cover, and they run the risk of being found. So we’ve decided to rely on Moss instead. He’s capable of releasing a large number of tiny Replications and picking up all the information they take in. None of them can fight very much, but losing a replication won’t hurt us at all. Using that, Moss is currently monitoring the eastern Forest of Jura. He’s informed us that platoons of imperial troops are on the advance in there, and thanks to his surveillance, we can crush each and every one of them at will.”
He accentuated the point with a cruel smile. Kind of scary. Good thing he’s on our side.
Sure, we could defeat these small platoons all day—but it’s the big main force behind them that worried me. Benimaru’s strategy for that was to wait until they had gotten themselves assembled to some extent.
“If the imperial force is trying to reach the Dungeon, we’ll invite them in and take care of them then. If any remain on the surface, Geld’s Second Corps and my main force will hit them hard! That’s all.”
It was a very simple, easy-to-grasp strategy…but really, I was still worried about our size difference. Nobody had commented on that yet, but what did they think about it? Maybe I ought to have brought it up…
…but as I hesitated, the Control Center rang out with the cries of war.
“All right! If Gabil’s joining my team, we’re all gonna be okay. Victory’s in the bag for us!”
“I’m delighted to hear that from you, Sir Gobta! And I promise you that we’ll fight the way a winning army should!”
“I was worried we wouldn’t get to join in, but I knew Sir Benimaru would come through. He left us with the greatest honor of all—protecting the homeland. Trust me when I say we’ll make full use of our powers!”
All three of our generals responded to Benimaru’s call to arms. Even the nonmilitary folks were excitedly trading feedback with one another. There wasn’t a hint of pessimism—even the three demonesses were happily joining in.
But, guys… Again, the size difference…
I mean, yeah, I thought we could win this, too. I even felt pretty safe assuming we would. But I was far from anxiety-free—and yet nobody seemed the slightest bit worried. It was weird. Even Gobta was brimming with enthusiasm, his initial concerns now put behind him. He might’ve had Hakuro as his adviser, but I was still anxious about him.
“All right. So is anyone unclear about any part of Benimaru’s rundown?”
I prompted them all, but no one had any questions. Instead, Benimaru spoke for the group.
“Do not worry, Sir Rimuru. We are not at all worried about losing—not because we don’t think we’ll lose, but because we’ll devote every effort to the fight. We have ample enough reason to win, and we have a glorious battlefield waiting. If we lose, it just proves we were incompetent. We weren’t the fittest, so we didn’t survive.”
He gave me a refreshing smile. All the monsters in the room were exuding the same vibe, including Shuna and the other women. They weren’t afraid of losing; they were afraid of running from the fight. And more than that—I thought, vaguely at least, I was beginning to understand their feelings. I thought I did, and I decided to do what I could for them.
“Testarossa! Ultima! Carrera!”
“““Yes, sir!”””
The three demonesses immediately reacted. I had an order for them.
“Each of you will accompany an army corps and support their operations!”
“Absolutely, Sir Rimuru,” Testarossa replied. “I have Cien taking care of the Council, so until this war is over, I will gladly participate.”
“Finally I’m seeing some action! You’re in good hands, Sir Rimuru!” said Ultima.
“Hee-hee-hee…,” Carrera snickered. “You can expect great things from me, Master. Time to show off every ounce of my powers!”
The three of them looked up at me, beaming. I nodded back and gave out my assignments.
“Testarossa, you’ll join Gobta.”
“Gladly!” she replied.
Gobta looked significantly less convinced. “You sure about that? This girl’s never even fought before. Can she keep up with the First Corps?”
Sheesh. That was a pretty bold statement to make around her. I mean, I didn’t know these girls were Primals until just recently so I’m not one to talk, but Gobta’s sheer courage just floored me. She’s gonna kill you, I thought, but I kept my mouth shut. After all, wouldn’t it be more fun this way?
“My, I’m glad to be of such help,” Testarossa said with a smile, but I knew I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t look her in the eye right then. Don’t worry, Gobta. I’m pretty sure she’ll accept an apology. Can’t wait for Gobta to find out who she really is, though.
By those standards, Gabil had matured a lot. He bowed his head to Ultima.
“I look forward to your support. I still have so many improvements to make!”
According to Diablo and my other sources, Ultima was the most brutal of the three demonesses. Carrera was the most likely to go out of control, but Ultima was still the scariest. I could already picture her following my orders but still keeping an eye on the side paths for some imperial soldiers to torture.
Gabil dealt with her correctly, at least. She seemed to like him a lot, chirping “Okay! I’m looking forward to it, too!” in her cute voice. I know Gabil had been working hard on his habit of getting carried away, and now I’d say it just saved his life. A little daily effort can accomplish so many things.
Geld, meanwhile, had no problem shaking hands with Carrera. They both had a kind of “noble warrior” aura to them. I have to say, though, I did a pretty exquisite job with these pairings. If Gobta and Gabil had switched places, I think Gobta would’ve been in mortal danger.
So I patted myself on the back as I gave them all a little pep talk. Nobody really knew who these demonesses were; I put a gag order on everyone who attended the meeting Guy crashed. No point terrorizing everyone for no good reason. I also told the trio to keep mum about it and take orders from the generals so they wouldn’t reveal themselves, but I was so sure they’d mess it up. It really scared me. Wish I didn’t have to know the truth about them…
…But ahhh, let’s trust them. Unless I told them to, I’m sure Testarossa and her friends would lie low. Either way, though, we had these three pairs in place, and with the demonesses accompanying our corps, I’m sure they could deal with any emergencies. That, at least, relieved me a bit.
“That settles that topic. Anything further to add?”
The rest would depend on the Empire’s moves, so they’d just have to play it by ear after that. It’d be important to work alongside King Gazel, so we’d need to hold detailed talks about that—but that was a strategic HQ job. Our generals had their own orders already, so if that was all, I was ready to adjourn.
But one person raised his hand up high.
“Um, could I say something?”
“What’s up, Masayuki?”
“Well, uh, I just had a question…”
“Mm-hmm?”
“Ignoring the question of why I’m a general for the moment, the Volunteer Army you gave me—um, I don’t think anyone said what its role would be or anything, but…?”
Ah, that? Yeah, I’m sure he has a few questions. Taking a high school–age kid and calling him a general would confuse anyone. Maybe you’d see officers his age back in the samurai era, but I didn’t think a kid who grew up during peacetime in Japan could keep up with it. But… You know, it’s hard for me, too. I turn around one day, and boom, I’m a demon lord. I didn’t have any helpful boss giving me a shoulder to lean on, either. Along those lines, I’d say Masayuki is pretty lucky, actually.
“Don’t you think so?”
“Don’t I think so, what? Can you please give me some guidance?”
Oh, right. Thinking all this won’t get it across to him. It’d probably sound like a bunch of excuses to him, but oh well.
“Well… You know, I felt kinda bad about pushing a huge amount of responsibility on you at once.”
“N-no, um…”
“But when it comes to reassuring the hearts and minds of our citizens, you’re the best guy we got.”
If we were all monsters here, a war breaking out wouldn’t be an issue at all. Their morale would be one hundred percent, and nobody would cause any trouble. Not so with our new residents. They’d be scared, anxious, disturbed, and some might turn to crime, even.
“So it’s at a time like this when I want you to exercise your powers and ease everybody’s anxieties.”
“I see… I think I can help you with that.”
Masayuki seemed to understand well enough.
“Ah-ha-ha! No need for modesty, Sir Masayuki! As a Hero, everybody knows—to say nothing of myself—that you’d hesitate to take the side of a single nation! But I hope you’ll still lend a hand to assist the powerless, the helpless among our citizenry!”
Mjöllmile’s eyes sparkled as he pleaded with Masayuki. He was still misreading the kid’s actual powers, but I didn’t see any need to correct him. In fact, I had a sneaking suspicion that Hinata had the wrong idea about him, too. What a bad dude, I thought as I watched the legend of Masayuki unfold before me.
“…Yes…”
He didn’t look too thrilled. In fact, I’d say he was pretty disgusted with the whole thing. I felt bad for him, but I really wanted him to pitch in.
“…So I guess my Volunteer Army will maintain public order?”
“Perfect. As you know, Ramiris will ensure that the damage to our town will be kept to a minimum. When war breaks out, you see, the capital on the surface is going to be quarantined inside the labyrinth.”
I told my cabinet about this already, along with other involved parties. I wasn’t keeping a tight cap on it, so I was sure the stragglers from our evacuation drills were spreading rumors about it. That was on purpose; I figured it’d help assuage people’s fears a little more.
“Hee-hee-hee! That’s right! I’m a pretty powerful fairy, y’know, but that’s all thanks to my master!”
“Indeed. I have lent a portion of my ponderous magicule force to Ramiris, allowing her to engineer this gargantuan feat. Call it a victory driven by friendship, if you will.”
It was Ramiris who did the required legwork to stuff the city inside the labyrinth, but it couldn’t be powered at all without Veldora. I had to honestly thank him for that.
“Thanks, you two. It’s a huge help.”
“Oh, is it? Aw, it’s no biggie! None at all! You can compliment me more if you like, though!”
“Kwah-ha-ha-ha! That’s right! Sing our praises to the high heavens!”
“Yeah, yeah, thank you very much!”
A couple compliments, and look at them go! But they really did deserve it. And even when the city’s sequestered in the Dungeon, you’ll still see the sky above. A lot of citizens won’t even realize anything is different. The Empire won’t bring any of its violence to town, and really, I was still astounded by it.
“But you need to remember, Rimuru…,” said Veldora.
“Hmm?”
“This isn’t too likely to happen,” Ramiris began, “but if my master was somehow defeated, and the Empire makes it through the hundredth floor, that’s going to eject the town back up to the surface. Kind of the rebound from expending all that effort, y’know?”
“Ah, that’s another concern, huh? But that’s based on the assumption that Veldora’s gonna lose, isn’t it? If it comes to that, I think the town’s gonna be the least of our worries.”
If it did, all of us would be fully devoted to the fight. We wouldn’t have the leeway to worry about what happened to the city, I’m sure.
“Not that I’d ever lose, of course,” Veldora boasted.
“Mm-hmm. We got the Ten Dungeon Marvels on the case, too, so I think we’re gonna be just peachy!”
Ramiris was right, certainly. I didn’t think Veldora would be playing much of a role. But if worse comes to worst…
“There’s always Masayuki, too.”
“Huhhh?! W-wait! Wait a minute, please! Peacekeeping is one thing, but what could I ever do if it came to that?”
We all nodded at Masayuki as he whined about never even leading an army before. Even Mjöllmile, as much as he worshipped the guy, could understand.
“Don’t worry, Masayuki,” I assured him. “I don’t expect you to lead an entire military force. I’m still discussing this with Hinata, but I’m asking her to send an aide from the Crusaders. I’m sure she’ll say yes, so you’re gonna have an assistant helping you out pretty soon.”
“Oh, you will? Well, that’s a relief.”
“And also—!” I added. “I’ll have the kids serve as your bodyguards, so they’ll keep you safe—um, I mean, you keep them safe, all right?”
“Wah-ha-ha! Imagine, being defended by the Hero himself! Those children couldn’t possibly be safer!” Mjöllmile roared.
“Of… Of course.”
Masayuki nodded, even as a bead of sweat ran down his temple. He knew what the kids were capable of, so he understood who was gonna be defending whom well enough. Plus, they’d have Chloe around, and I was sure she could keep them all alive if things got really hairy.
So that was everything we needed to talk about. We were fully prepared, but until the end came, there was no telling what could happen.
Besides… Well, it’s not like I didn’t have any concerns. Chloe, after all, had pretty vivid memories of my grisly death. At least one person in the Empire had the power to kill me—that was an undeniable fact. If they came for me, not even the Ten Dungeon Marvels could stop them. In fact…
Report. The Ten Dungeon Marvels were put in place precisely for that reason—to reveal the scope of the enemy’s powers.
That’s what I thought. At the end of the day, Raphael always put my own safety first, I guess. I appreciated it, but at the same time, I had to brace myself. I had to protect my friends, no matter what. I didn’t want any of them hurt thanks to something as ridiculous as a war.
And with that resolve in my heart, I ended the day’s meeting.
Masayuki did a good job addressing the populace, it looked like. Apparently, it turned into an “I browbeat the demon lord into swearing he’d defend the city” kinda premise.
“The Hero does it again!”
“What a role model!”
There he was, looking conflicted with himself as he basked in the adulation of Tempest’s adventurers and immigrants. But even his expression got misconstrued.
“My, doesn’t the Hero look so attractive when he’s scowling?”
“After all the promises he extracted from the demon lord, the Hero’s still not satisfied yet!”
“Indeed, indeed. Such a modest, reserved leader!”
“The Hero’s going to protect this town. Between the demon lord Rimuru and him, I’m not scared one bit of the Empire’s attack!”
“Yeah! Just leave it to them, and they’ll take care of everything!”
…That sort of interpretation. Now Masayuki’s reputation was better than ever, his mental suffering going completely unnoticed by anyone else.
And so as the populace went on with their normal lives, the moment finally came. The Empire made its debut, and our days of peace reached an end.
There, on a hot summer night, war began like a sudden dream.
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