Copyright
That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, Vol. 10
FUSE
Translation by Kevin Gifford Cover art by Mitz Vah
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places,
and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or
are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events,
locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
TENSEI SHITARA SLIME DATTA KEN volume 10
© Fuse / Mitz Vah
All rights reserved.
First published in Japan in 2017 by MICRO MAGAZINE, INC.
English translation rights arranged with MICRO MAGAZINE,
INC. through Tuttle-Mori Agency, Inc., Tokyo.
English translation © 2021 by Yen Press, LLC
Yen Press, LLC supports the right to free expression and the
value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage
writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich
our culture.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book
without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual
property. If you would like permission to use material from
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names:
Fuse, author. | Mitz Vah, illustrator. | Gifford, Kevin,
translator.
Title: That time I got reincarnated as a slime / Fuse ;
illustration by Mitz Vah ; translation by Kevin Gifford.
Other titles: Tensei Shitara Slime datta ken. English
Description: First Yen On edition. | New York : Yen ON,
2017– Identifiers: LCCN 2017043646 | ISBN
9780316414203 (v. 1 : pbk.) | ISBN 9781975301118 (v. 2 :
pbk.) | ISBN 9781975301132 (v. 3 : pbk.) | ISBN
9781975301149 (v. 4 : pbk.) | ISBN 9781975301163 (v. 5 :
pbk.) | ISBN 9781975301187 (v. 6 : pbk.) | ISBN
9781975301200 (v. 7 : pbk.) | ISBN 9781975312992 (v. 8 :
pbk.) | ISBN 9781975314378 (v. 9 : pbk.) | ISBN
9781975314392 (v. 10 : pbk.) Subjects: GSAFD: Fantasy
fiction.
Classification: LCC PL870.S4 T4613 2017 | DDC 895.63/6—
dc23
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LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017043646
ISBNs: 978-1-9753-1439-2 (paperback) 978-1-9753-1440-8
(ebook)
E3-20201222-JV-NF-ORI
CONTENTS | MAGIC-BORN MANIPULATION
Cover
Insert
Title Page
Copyright
Prologue: Those Who Set Things in Motion
Chapter 1: A Brisk Labyrinth Business
Chapter 2: Lively Days
Interlude: Maribel
Chapter 3: The Council
Chapter 4: Behind the Curtain
Chapter 5: The Trap of Greed
Epilogue: The One Who Laughs Last
Afterword
Yen Newsletter
file:///tmp/calibre_5.12.0_tmp_3epkc5mp/5u_5frye_pdf_out/OEBPS/Text/cover.xhtml
PROLOGUE
THOSE WHO SET THINGS IN MOTION
The boy let out a resigned, exasperated sigh.
“You sure look depressed about something. Was there a
problem?”
He was asking a man wearing an asymmetrical mask—
Laplace, a magic-born and member of the Moderate
Jesters. A man that Yuuki Kagurazaka, the boy facing him
now, counted as someone he trusted.
“You could say that. I got an invite, so I stopped by to
pay a visit, but I’m telling you, my jaw practically hit the
floor. I suppose you could say it was a big hit to my
confidence—or that I thought we needed to reconsider our
plans.”
“Reconsider our plans?”
Kazalim, the ex–demon lord now passing herself off as
Yuuki’s secretary, Kagali, repeated the words right back at
Laplace.
“Right, right,” a depressed-looking Yuuki replied. “I’m
thinking we don’t want to get on that slime’s bad side, if we
can help it.”
“So why not retain a close relationship, then? I’m set to
explore those ruins before long, so I assumed we would
stay on friendly terms for the time being…?”
“No, the plan’s still the same as always. It’s just that
now, it’s gotten a lot harder.”
“And why’s that? You keep it cool, don’t make any waves,
and nobody’s gonna get hurt, right?”
Laplace was no fool, either. Given how his friend
Clayman was no longer alive, he did have a bone to pick
with Rimuru—but he wasn’t willing to defy their boss
Yuuki’s orders just to start a fight. And Laplace wasn’t
alone. Footman and Teare had the same opinion, and as
leader of the Jesters, Kagali understood well enough the
dangers of letting emotion drive your behavior.
In this world, the one supreme rule was survival of the
fittest. Through their shared experiences, Laplace and his
team had learned that nothing good comes from taking
reckless action before victory was assured. Not only did
Clayman completely fail to obtain his revenge against the
demon lord Leon; he even died in the attempt. Thanks to
that, even with the former Kazalim returned among them,
the Moderate Jesters were right back where they started
from. If they decided to open hostilities against the demon
lord Rimuru at this point, revenge against Leon would be
the least of their worries.
They all understood that, and so the Jesters bade their
time, just as Yuuki ordered. But then Yuuki informed them
of a problem.
“Well, on that note, I think that’s gotten a little difficult
for us, too,” said Yuuki.
“…Meaning?”
“It’s looking like that slime is starting to suspect
something with us…”
“Whaa? Hang on, did you do something to make ’im
catch you out?” Laplace asked.
“Oh, don’t be silly, Laplace! Unlike you, the boss would
never make a mistake like that!”
“Ho-ho-ho! You’re right. I don’t know anybody nearly as
wary as our boss here. I sincerely doubt he did anything ill-
advised.”
The eternally careful Yuuki seemed to be suggesting he
was the one at fault—but Laplace’s response was quickly
shot down by Teare and Footman. That was the sort of
respect Yuuki had earned from the Jesters.
“Calm down, guys,” rebuked Kagali, their leader. “It’s no
mistake Sir Yuuki here made. The slime was quite cautious
indeed, as it turned out. Facing up to him myself, I could
tell there’s nobody else like him. He made me feel like my
whole body was being watched—like I couldn’t let my
guard down for a moment. I couldn’t fully suss out the
force he has to work with, but he’s a formidable one, no
doubt.”
Having gone toe to toe against Rimuru once before,
Kagali was able to instinctually feel the danger the slime
presented. He wasn’t even Leon’s equal in terms of
strength, but that ability to see and react to everything in
the world was a threat, she felt.
Yuuki nodded at her. “No, I think that slime—the demon
lord Rimuru—I think he’s a menace. One of the leaders of
the Council was there, one of our main sources of funding,
and he met his intellectual match pretty quickly with him.
He’s crafty, he’s careful, and he’s merciless against his
foes. Normally, he’s kind and gentle, but get him riled up,
and there’s no controlling him, you could say. And since I
tried and failed to use that man, it’s little surprise I’m
under suspicion.”
He shrugged.
“Well, yeah, Boss, but whatever he thinks about ya, he
ain’t got no evidence, does he? So just go with it and play it
normal, and he can’t do nothin’ about that, right?”
“There’s no physical evidence, no. But you know, I’m the
one who leaked the fate of Shizu to Hinata, and that’s some
pretty damning circumstantial evidence, I bet. Plus, at the
very end, he rounded up all his people to discuss their
future direction, but I guess Rimuru chose that meeting to
round up all his suspects, too. It’s pretty fair to assume that
our cover’s been blown.”
“Oh my…”
The group looked on, distressed, as they listened to
Yuuki’s rundown. Kagali, unsurprisingly, was the first to
,before tackling the labyrinth. If you had a little intelligence,
you’d know it pays to listen to our instructions, after all—
and as more people seriously took up the missions, training
on the first floor began in earnest. Now we had challengers
taking what they’d learned and fully preparing with it,
helping our own budget with the equipment they purchased
near the front desk.
Then, a few days after we rebalanced the Dungeon, we
began to see parties reach the fifth floor. Floor 2 was vast
but simple, and the traps up to Floor 4 were more like jump
scares than anything really malicious. So long as you kept
an accurate map, making it to Floor 5 was actually pretty
easy. This seemed acceptable to me.
Floor 5 downward was more of a test of ability. The traps
got more hazardous, and monsters ranked D and above
made their debut—but the treasure chests also held more
valuable items. I wanted our customers to really pound
those floors, doing their best to conquer them…but alas, it
really was a challenge for most.
To put it simply, fatigue began to be an issue. Keeping a
constant watch for monsters is an easy way to mentally
exhaust yourself, I suppose. Many people retreated back to
the last stairway to take advantage of our rest space; the
inn on Floor 95 was doing fabulous business, so that much
worked out as planned.
Around when our challengers began to strike a presence
between Floors 5 and 8, we started to see adventurers
arrive from the world’s Free Guilds, following the rumors.
Some of them were seasoned adventurers bearing
contracts from noble sponsors, and before long, the whole
town was getting busier. With this second wave livening up
the old guard, the race to conquer the floors grew frenetic
—and with these serious contenders, we also began to see
people try to cheat their way to glory.
Yes, people decided to sell maps of the labyrinth in broad
daylight. A lot of people (myself included) had no sense of
direction, and in a labyrinth, all the strength in the world
couldn’t help if you kept getting lost. So I could understand
the demand…but I really wished people would have formed
parties and assigned mapmaking duties to members
instead.
So following an announcement posted in and out of the
labyrinth, we began to change its inner structure. The
challengers were livid, of course, and we got lots of
complaints—but I’m a demon lord. I’m not beholden to
them. I needed to show them early on that maps were
meaningless unless you made your own. If anything, I was
being kind to them—if they didn’t make their own, they’d
find it impossible to adapt if a change to the labyrinth
rendered their maps useless. Call it tough love.
As a rule, we changed the labyrinth layouts once every
two or three days. Completing a single floor took at least a
few hours; there’s no way you’d reach the save point on
Floor 10 in one go. Thanks to that, the layout changes were
a pretty big success. The challengers gave up on selling
and buying maps, instead taking a more serious approach
to the labyrinth. It seemed like some people plunged in
right after a layout change to whip up a map to sell anyway,
but I decided to let that slide.
We were pretty happy about the anti-cheating measures.
But we sure couldn’t let our guard down. The Free Guild
adventurers may’ve gotten a late start at the labyrinth, but
some of them wielded Automap, the elemental magic spell
that gave them a skillful advantage in exploration.
Free Guild members really were in a class of their own.
They were used to fighting monsters, so they were battle-
honed and ready for combat. They also knew how to divide
tasks among their party members, which I appreciated.
Basson’s party was all about fighting, but now we saw
groups with each member picked to carry out a particular
role—fighters to handle the monsters, explorers to handle
traps and mazes, and gatherers with a wealth of knowledge
to tap. Balance was the watchword with these parties, and
it really struck me how adaptable they all were.
So the adventurers quickly completed the training
missions and dived into the Dungeon. Those with ruin-
exploration experience were masters at trap removal. They
didn’t sprint for every treasure chest they saw. Compared
to the bodyguards and mercenaries we saw first, they were
quite careful—demonstrating an even more professional
performance than I imagined. Seeing them execute such a
clear understanding of the rules, I started to think we
shouldn’t have reined in the Dungeon after all.
So just a few days after the second wave arrived,
someone managed to beat Floor 10. Now the challengers
were really on a roll—learning from their predecessors’
mistakes, painstakingly devising countermeasures, and
starting to make real, constant headway. And once someone
figured out how to handle this trick or that monster, word
spread fast about it. People started to imitate the winning
formula. I bet people were selling their advice, too. No
stopping them, I suppose. If maps were a nonstarter, I
suppose information comes next. I really had to hand it to
them—and really, the more enthusiastic everyone was, the
better.
And the town was starting to see the challengers’
progress as a kind of spectator sport to enjoy over drinks.
The shops, the inns, the taverns—rumors spread
everywhere, packed with tales that delighted and thrilled.
Among them came word about one party appearing out
of nowhere to blaze down the labyrinth at a previously
unheard-of speed, a stout and well-balanced group of ten.
The first thing they did was add themselves to the save
point on Floor 10. One of them joined a party who had
already made it that far down; he then put his info in the
save point, used a return whistle to go back to the
entrance, and then headed down with his own party.
I was anticipating this and had no issue with it, but the
speed they proceeded at astounded me. In just three days
or so, they had defeated the boss monster on Floor 20.
They had talent, no doubt—each one ranked around a B
individually, but maybe B-plus as a group. All ten of them
showed great teamwork, too, so in terms of real strength, I
bet they could earn an A-minus.
But if they’re going this fast, there had to be some kind
of trick behind it. I mean, they kept on selecting the
shortest routes through each floor, every time…
Understood. Elemental interference detected. An
elementalist is utilizing Elemental Communication.
Oh, that…?
An elementalist is a magician capable of harnessing the
power of elemental spirits. One of the tricks up their sleeve
is Elemental Communication, allowing them to listen to the
words of those elemental spirits. If they can talk to wind
and earth elementals on a deep enough level, it seems,
those spirits will guide them down the correct path to the
stairs—and since an elementalist could tap that, a twisty
maze of passages was no sweat to them.
Those dirty, dirty elementalists! But sadly, this was fully
within the rules. After all, there’s no guarantee the spirit
you tap into will always give you the correct path. Besides,
there were precious few elementalists in the world, so I
didn’t even consider that kind of workaround. As far as I
was concerned, this was a perfectly valid approach, one I
shouldn’t bother trying to counteract. If anything, I should
praise them for coming up with it.
The party’s rapid advance continued anon. Part of our
procedure was that whenever a party conquered a new
floor, it was announced across town; thanks to that, the
party members quickly became household names. The
crack team of explorers were collectively called Green
Fury, their mystery elementalist serving as leader, and
before long, they were rapidly approaching Masayuki’s
Team Lightspeed in popularity.
Just as we hoped, the labyrinth was now hosting serious
talent. No doubt we’d see more young challengers visit
town with dreams of fortune and glory. The labyrinth—
currently
,enjoying a steadily growing audience of
challengers—had become a well-oiled machine.
We took this opportunity to gather again. It had been ten
days since we reorganized the labyrinth, so I wanted us to
confer and talk about any problems that had come up.
Unlike before, everything was going great, so the mood
was lighthearted—natural smiles all around.
“Ah yes, Masayuki, was it? I always thought you had
potential, but now I see you are a mighty man indeed!”
Veldora seemed very chipper today, and the moment we
were all together, he was heaping Masayuki with praise.
“Oh, you think so? Um, thanks…” Masayuki didn’t seem
sure how to respond.
He looked at me, as if to ask “who is this guy?” I did
introduce them to each other last time, but Masayuki was
kind of nervous back then. I could see it if he didn’t
remember him.
“I think I introduced you before, but—”
“N-no, um, people just started talking and stuff, so…”
Oh, did we?
Understood. As the subject Masayuki Honjo stated, no
introductions were made.
Oh. Guess my memory was pretty hazy, too. Can’t blame
Masayuki then, I thought.
“Ah well, let me do that now. This is Veldora, a good
friend of mine. He’s serving as the master of the labyrinth’s
hundredth floor.”
“Indeed, ’tis I, Veldora, and I gladly accept you as one of
us, Masayuki. Welcome!”
To Veldora, Masayuki was part of the club already. He
flashed him a friendly smile. Then Masayuki’s face visibly
whitened.
“Ummm… By Veldora, do you mean the Catastrophe that
killed the entire army of Farmus…?”
Oh, right, that was the rumor we spread around. I don’t
mind telling Masayuki the truth, but it’s kind of a long story
and there’s no pressing reason to. Let’s just go with this.
“Yeahhh, he’s kind of a big shot, so try not to rile him,
okay?”
“Kwah-ha-ha-ha! Oh, but I am a generous soul indeed, so
it takes a great deal to anger me! And if you provide me
with sweet treats to eat, I would not hesitate to offer you
my protection!”
There he goes again. I rolled up my notepapers and
swatted him with them. Punishment complete. Discipline,
you know; it’s important.
It must have surprised our local dragon, because he
shouted “What are you doing?!” and so on for a bit, but I
still had Ramiris to introduce.
“And this is Ramiris, a fairy and someone you could call
the ruler of the labyrinth.”
Masayuki had been muttering things like “So I wasn’t
imagining it…” In the midst of this, but my voice helped
him regain his composure. His eyes turned to Ramiris,
flapping in the air.
“Oh… You’re a fairy, Ramiris? And you built that entire
amazing labyrinth? That’s really great.”
The compliments were more than enough to get Ramiris
going as well. “Whoa! Hey, I like you! In fact, I’ll gladly
name you my underling. And Rimuru! Did you hear that?
He said that I’m really great!!”
She was kicking the air in my direction, visibly excited as
she bragged. God, lay off. If I played along, she’d only get
worse. Ignoring the dropkicks she applied to me, I tried to
move things forward.
“Yeah, yeah, congrats,” I replied. “If Masayuki wants to
be your underling, have at it, I guess.”
A Hero serving as a henchman for a demon lord.
Whatever. But this must be hopelessly confusing Masayuki,
right?
“Uh… Who is Ramiris, exactly?”
“She may not look it,” I said, matching Masayuki’s quiet
whisper, “but she’s a demon lord just like me.”
“Wha?!” he exclaimed, frozen as the beaming Ramiris
approached him. Our voices were hushed, but not enough
for her sharp ears, I guess.
“Heyaaa! That’s me, Ramiris of the Octagram! Good to
become officially acquainted, Masayuki!!”
“H-huh? Ramiris… You’re a demon lord? And Veldora’s a
dragon… W-wow. Really?”
Masayuki…
The thought of dealing with a demon lord and Storm
Dragon all this time dazed him. I guess I should have
explained things fully before making the introduction.
That’s on me…but Masayuki had to take some of the blame
here. He’s the one who acted all cool and collected at our
last meeting. That’s why I assumed he knew them already.
It was his nerves of steel that allowed him to keep his
composure. I didn’t realize he was clueless this whole
time…
They say ignorance is a sin, but sometimes it’s your
greatest asset. Masayuki had been accepted by a dragon
and demon lord, and he never even realized it. Once again,
I couldn’t help but marvel at his luck.
It was Mjöllmile who finally threw Masayuki a life
preserver.
“Lady Ramiris, please, none of that. Why, Sir Masayuki
would hardly even know how to respond, would he?”
Since he was such a fan of Masayuki, I suppose Mjöllmile
assumed that conversation was a joke—Ramiris making
unreasonable demands, and the kind Hero unsure how to
react. I figured Masayuki’s response would’ve disillusioned
him, but I guess that’s the Hero’s skill at work.
…Or maybe not. Somehow, it seemed like Mjöllmile
really believed in Masayuki from the heart. Seeing it, or
maybe even feeling it, Masayuki smiled.
“This is Mjöllmile, my trusted adviser and the head of
Tempest’s financial department. Kind of our minister of
finance, I suppose.”
“A pleasure to meet you again, Sir Masayuki.”
“Ha-ha-ha! That’s kind of you, Mjöllmile.”
“Oh, no, I’m just an upstart from the underground…”
“Well, as you said, I’m afraid I can’t join with you right
now, Ramiris. I’ve already promised Mikami—um, I mean,
Rimuru that I’d give him my support.”
Masayuki lightly bowed at Ramiris.
“I’ll bet,” Mjöllmile said. “Sir Rimuru does have a way of
taking advantage of people!”
What had I ever done? And Ramiris was ready to join
him.
“Well, if that’s how it is, so be it! You’re so cunning, you
know that, Rimuru?”
“Hey,” I nonchalantly replied, “first come, first served.”
Then Veldora started bragging for some reason.
“Kwah-ha-ha-ha! You won’t find many people as
dependable as Rimuru. Ramiris, I think you’ll have to give
up on ever getting ahead of him. But let’s hear from
Masayuki now! We need to proceed!”
I had my qualms about what everyone here thought
about me, but—ah yes—we were still making introductions.
It seemed kind of moot, though. Everyone already knew his
name.
“All right. Masayuki, you go ahead.”
“Okay,” he said with a nod. “I think some of you are
aware by now, but my name is Masayuki. I come from the
same world as Rimuru, and now we’re working together.
People call me a Hero, but please don’t let that cloud your
judgment.”
He gave his introduction facing all the others, back
straight. I felt like he wanted to tell them he called himself
a Hero just as a joke, but with Mjöllmile looking straight at
him, I suppose he opted against that.
Highly adaptable as always, he was already back to his
usual composed self. Defiant, you could say. They may have
met last time, but he was capable of being all smiles with
Veldora and Ramiris, which took guts. He really was
someone special. Maybe it wasn’t his unique skill Chosen
One having its effect on the people around him—maybe a
lot of it was just his own personality. I didn’t think there
was any way he could wield this much influence with a
unique skill alone.
That, I thought as we wrapped up the introductions, we
could try verifying later on.
We were all seated. Our last meeting was something of
an emergency confab, but this time, things were less
urgent. We were all at ease.
“I have to say, Masayuki, you sure are something. We
owe all our success to you!” Ramiris started excitedly
shouting the moment she was seated.
“Let’s not forget,” Veldora added, “Mjöllmile has done
much for us, too. As you said, perhaps we were right not to
simplify the Dungeon too much!”
I agreed with them both. Putting our minds together like
this was what provided success, no doubt about it.
“Oh, I’m just glad I could help.”
“Yes, and I hardly did anything myself. None of this
would be possible without all of your powers!”
After that round of pleasantries, we discussed the state
of the labyrinth.
Sales were going
,great—really great. It made Mjöllmile
laugh, although all the work made him cry. Plus, the people
visiting town were staying in our inns, enabling the
innkeepers and the nearby taverns to run a booming
business.
“Here is my report,” Mjöllmile said as he took out some
papers. Veldora and Ramiris seemed interested as well, so I
made some copies and passed them around. I figured I’d
quickly skim over it to see if there were any problems at
hand, leaving the detailed number crunching to Raphael.
Right. Let’s see what we have here. It’s times like these
that I’m glad I can go into human form. I could read
through papers as a slime, of course, but for office work,
being human was far more convenient.
According to the data on the report, things had gone
smoothly with our labyrinth since our adjustments.
“Looks like our advertising worked well.”
“Oh yes! We’re astonishingly busy every day,” he said,
eagerly nodding.
Veldora and Ramiris looked at the report, whether they
could understand it or not. For the most part, it was a
ledger of our most recent statistics, but there were a few
special topics covered as well.
One of these was the Adventurer Cards—the Guild
membership IDs that could be used as admission into the
labyrinth now that Mjöllmile had received Yuuki’s approval
to do so. These cards were magic in nature, keeping track
of the bearer’s vital signs and retaining that data in a
record, which was quite convenient. They allowed for
seamless labyrinth entry, just like how you’d use it at your
Free Guild post, so it was easy for adventurers to get to
grips with. Hardly any bodyguards or mercenaries weren’t
Guild members, either, so the implementation went pretty
smoothly.
For the moment, the labyrinth’s admission fee was three
silver coins a go. The cards were manufactured by the Free
Guild, saving us from production hassles. Our own nation
provided basic cards as well, at the cost of ten silver—and
while most challengers were Guild members, we
occasionally sold these cards to people, too. Between all of
that, we were raking in a lot of money just from admission
alone.
The report also contained details on the three Ramiris-
produced items in the labyrinth. Your first Resurrection
Bracelet cost nothing—a freebie so you could see how
useful they were. After that, you had to pay for them; but at
just two silver coins, they were quite reasonable—
especially considering they not only resurrected you but
also healed any of the wounds you incurred that led to your
death. After debating it for a while, we decided to keep the
price low as a service to our audience. (By the way, we had
a warning announcement play if you reentered the
labyrinth without wearing your Resurrection Bracelet. If
you got yourself killed in there, that’s none of my business,
but it’d still leave a bad aftertaste in my mouth if that
happened.)
To make them easier to buy, the bracelets were sold
right next to the front desk, where we had the dead
resurrected. Between that and being a pretty indispensable
item, they were selling like hotcakes, definitely the most
popular out of the Dungeon’s three items.
Return whistles, meanwhile, allowed a single person to
instantly zoom back to the surface, a godsend if you got
lost. This was insurance for a lot of parties, so it was priced
on the high side—thirty silver per whistle. People tried to
cheap out on these and just rely on Resurrection Bracelets
instead, but I wouldn’t exactly call that smart. Yes, you
would be whisked back to the entrance that way, but you
could lose your equipment and stuff as well. You’d keep
whatever armor you had on, but anything that slipped out
of your hands at the time of death was gone for good.
Nobody’s literally carrying booty while in a fight, of course;
you’d probably drop it in the corridor for the time being.
Losing that stuff could make for a pretty hefty penalty. Few
people would take that risk just to get back to the entrance,
so there was a pretty decent demand for whistles.
Finally, Recording Crystals weren’t selling as well as we
hoped, but we did see some clients purchase them in large
quantities. At one gold coin a pop—close to a thousand
dollars—they were luxury goods, no doubt. And why not?
They let you basically turn back time whenever, and
wherever, you wanted. And since a lot of people would be
focusing strictly on the bosses, letting them go for cheap
seemed kind of dangerous for us, so we priced them sky-
high instead.
Still, I thought there was a demand for them. In the
deeper levels, the difficulty really ramped up from floor to
floor; the save points on every tenth floor could very well
seem like a trip across the continent. Thus, I figured it’d be
a while before we profited from them, but even in these
shallower levels, some people were still using them.
We were also experimenting with renting weapons and
armor out to people, but that hadn’t turned a profit yet.
These were Kurobe-crafted goods, pretty decent quality,
and since many people rented them after dying and losing
their main weapon, the feedback from them was excellent.
With the right word of mouth, I think we could see demand
rise soon.
So by and large, things were going well—but just
because we were succeeding now didn’t mean we could let
our guard down. Right now, we needed to be more prudent
than ever before.
The party at the forefront of the Dungeon was continuing
to do well, going deeper and deeper without anyone
dropping out. They were drumming up enthusiasm among
the other challengers, too, people who kept coming back
after messing up. That improved our sales, a cycle we
needed to keep going. If we can convince people that it’s
worth coming back again and again, then even our initial
goal of at least a thousand admissions per day seemed
surprisingly attainable.
“So, looking at Mollie’s report, I’d say we’re a pretty
resounding success right now. But we can’t rest on our
laurels. If you’ve noticed anything, don’t be afraid to speak
up.”
I wanted everyone to be at attention as I got the ball
rolling. Ramiris was the first to react.
“Me!”
“All right. Ramiris?”
“You know the elementalist using Elemental
Communication? Boy, I sure never thought about relying on
the spirits for info like that! But I can interfere with that, if
you want. What do you think?”
“Interfere, huh…?”
I did want to put some obstacles in their way, but it
seemed kind of like a coward move to me. The approach
this party took was completely orthodox, so getting all evil
with them felt like we’d be going against the spirit of the
rules. This isn’t a war, or a competition or the like.
“But it’s not like the spirits are being forced into it, are
they?”
“No. If they’re providing that much support, clearly the
elementalist must have a great relationship with them.”
“Better not interfere, then. I’m not into that kind of
thing.”
“Roger! I figured you’d say that, Rimuru.”
Ramiris was quick to back down. I suppose she wasn’t
much for it but thought it best to bring it up anyway.
“No, it is not good to lie. But, Ramiris, why not create an
elemental-free zone? That Elemental Communication; it
works by listening to the smaller spirits that’ve taken root
in the area, no? And it can’t work if the spirits aren’t there,
yes?”
Oops. That’s some surprising stuff coming from Veldora.
He’s normally so useless to me, but sometimes even he
says something intelligent.
“Rimuru, why do you look so surprised?”
And he’s sharp, too.
“Oh, no, I’m just impressed as always with you, Veldora,”
I said, a little shaken. “That’s a really good opinion!”
“Yes, is it not? My vast expertise has saved the day once
more! Kwaaaah-ha-ha-ha!”
Good thing he’s so gullible.
“Well, Ramiris?”
“Sure, I can do that! I’ll just ask the spirits to relocate
for me. Without any conscious spirits in the vicinity,
Elemental Communication can’t do anything at all!”
I guess that could work. Maybe, thanks
,to Veldora’s
proposal, we could do something about elementalists after
all.
“Great. Let’s do that. See, this is exactly why I think
brainstorming like this is a great idea.”
“Yes, quite so. You see, my vast wisdom is—”
“Okay, next. Anyone have any other observations?”
I couldn’t let Veldora get further carried away. Time to
move on. It wound up being Masayuki who spoke next.
“Do you think defeated monsters could drop items for
the explorers?”
Monsters leaving items behind—common in video games
but kind of enigmatic from a real-life perspective. And our
monsters already left crafting material and magic crystals.
Wasn’t that enough?
“Why do we need to do that?” Veldora asked.
Masayuki’s answer was simple. “Huh? Well, I mean,
healing potions are, like, surprisingly expensive. High-
ranked adventurers use ’em all the time because they can
afford to shell out for them, but most people would rather
run away from a battle than risk getting hurt. That, and if
you die in the labyrinth, you’re resurrected without any of
your injuries, so a lot of people just ‘nope’ out of there
instead of using any of their potions. So I’m just thinking,
why not have monsters drop Low Potions or something
when killed, so that everybody has access to them?”
Hmm… It was a valid point. Our nation’s potions served
as advertising, and their usefulness to us was starting to
expand—but they didn’t come very cheap, no. In fact, sales
were starting to stagnate a bit because of the price. Within
Tempest, Low Potions cost four silver coins; High Potions
were thirty-five, and Full Potions, while not offered for
direct sale, would probably need to be priced at over five
hundred silver, or five gold coins, if we did offer them.
Meanwhile, the cheapest inn in our city cost three silver a
night without meals and five with a bath and dinner. A nicer
room, used by passing merchants and the like, averaged
around ten silver plus meals.
On the other hand, a D-ranked adventurer earned, on
average, about fifteen silver coins after a day of work in the
labyrinth—maybe twenty, if they worked in a party for more
efficiency. That was good, for now; enough to live day by
day on, but not enough to prepare for any kind of
emergency. The treatment they’d need if they were sick or
badly hurt—or any kind of social safety net, really—would
be out of the question. Plus, they needed to maintain their
weapons, buying new ones if they broke and saving up for
better-quality goods.
In short, low-ranked monster hunters lived a
hardscrabble life. If they wanted a better one, their only
choice was to polish their skills. And in a life like that, four
silver coins was a painful investment to make. They need to
put money aside for admission, of course, and I sure get it
if a potion just isn’t in the budget for them…and yeah, I
know they’re gunning for a treasure chest with a major find
inside, but it’s not like whatever they discover will make
them filthy rich.
“That’s common in games, yeah. I understand what you
mean, Masayuki, but…the monsters are naturally
generated within the labyrinth, so I think it’ll be hard to
have them carry items…”
It’d be a mistake to excessively spoil our visitors, giving
them something they didn’t ask for in the first place. I’d
like to do something to help, but I think they need to be
able to support themselves first. That’s what the Free Guild
is there to assist with. From our nation’s perspective, we
can’t really provide welfare to people who don’t even live
here. It’s not exactly pretty, but you need to be strong to
survive—
“I think we can do that,” Ramiris casually commented,
just as I was mentally throwing in the towel.
“Really?”
“Sure. Just have them swallow the item right after
they’re born!”
If that was possible, it opened up a few possibilities.
Maybe we could populate the treasure chests with more
useful items and let the monsters drop the junkier stuff for
explorers. Junk or not, it’d still be a source of income for
the lower ranks—and going forward, I’d like those lower
ranks to have something to live on. In a perfect world,
people are rewarded for their efforts, and I wanted to make
that happen as much as possible.
“Well, no problem, then. If it’ll help people gain more of
an income beating monsters, I bet it’ll make them try even
harder for us.”
And it’d have the side effect of boosting the trade-in
monster-derived materials, as well as providing another
attraction for our nation. And once we have some more
money to work with, we can divert some of that into
welfare programs. I don’t know how much we can do about
illness, but serious injury? We could assist with it. If Japan
can have universal health care, it’s not a dream for
Tempest to have something like it. A system like this is
something we’ll want to implement at an early stage in our
nation’s development, lest people call it unfair. If possible,
I’d like to see that happen sooner than later.
The problem is to figure out who, exactly, we’ll call
citizens of Tempest. Labyrinth runners, passing merchants,
and people like that aren’t, naturally. Maybe now is the
time to register all our citizens and make the ownership of
rights clearer to everyone. Tempest is a developing country
right now, so we welcome any and all immigrants, but once
our nation matures, there might be movements to ostracize
noncitizens from our borders. A nation is, in a way, a large
cooperative entity—nobody can live alone, so we form
communities to help one another survive. We don’t need
parasites latching on to our nation, and I didn’t want to
embrace anyone who didn’t have a sense of belonging here.
It’s hard, after all, for people with different thoughts and
principles to coexist in the same community.
Basically, if a citizen belongs to a nation, they have a
duty to work for the sake of it. In turn, they can receive
certain services from that nation. That being said, people
have the right to not belong to any nation, free of civic duty
and retaining full, unfettered freedom. If you want to be
part of Tempest, come on in; if not, you’re still a welcome
guest, but I can’t provide you all the services a citizen
would receive. We’ll need to define the difference soon, and
I think Rigurd and I need to have some detailed discussions
about this.
…See? I can think about serious stuff sometimes, too.
“You think so? In that case, maybe we could mix in some
unfamiliar potions—or weapons and armor whose
capabilities are unknown? Like, so you won’t be able to
determine if they’re high value when you find them?”
Oh, right. We were still in a conference. I hurriedly
considered Masayuki’s suggestion. Hmm. I think I see what
he’s getting at.
“Ah, like, un-appraised tools and equipment that you
can’t use until you get them appraised at the entrance?”
“Yeah, yeah! I mean, I guess you can’t really drink a
potion if you don’t know its effect.”
“Oh, maybe some people would. And if we mix in some
poison flasks, that’d be another labyrinth trap for us. It’d
help warn people about making item appraisal a habit, too.
Let’s go with that.”
“Cursed equipment might be tough, but magic weaponry
would be pretty neat. Like, you think something is a piece
of junk but appraise it to reveal its true colors.
“That’s good! You can’t throw away junk then, and you’ll
also need to exit the labyrinth to have it appraised.”
Masayuki and I, with our video game knowledge, were
getting excited over this. The idea of actually implementing
it was thrilling, and Ramiris and Veldora, overhearing us,
seemed to be getting into it.
“If you want to hide the true nature of something, my
illusory magic ought to come in handy!”
“Kwah-ha-ha-ha! Ah, how lovely it is to see challengers
jump for joy, only to be agonized by doom later. Now things
will be even more exciting!”
Yep. Definitely into it.
“Hmm… Yes, and since junk equipment will take up
valuable space, people will want to sell it in town
,in short
order. That ought to boost return whistle sales!”
And now here’s Mjöllmile with some more reality-based
feedback. And he was right. Anyone would hesitate to toss
out un-appraised weapons and armor. Planting that thought
in people’s minds would make those people camping out in
the labyrinth in search of big finds reconsider their
strategy. And since we’re charging admission, the more
people going out and in, the more profit we make.
Plus, we wouldn’t be the only ones having fun here.
There’s something attractive about the term un-appraised.
Your heart can’t help but race as you wait for the appraisal
results—real pulse-pounding excitement. Something you
thought was junk transforms into treasure before your
eyes…and even if it turns out to be junk after all, you’ll still
treat it as your own. We don’t need to have a ton of
“jackpot” items like that, but along those lines, I think we
could certainly mix in some more Low Potions and the like.
That’ll help support the lower-ranked customers, although
we’ll have to fine-tune the ratios of trash to treasure.
“All right. Well, it’s about time we get to work.”
“Time to push a system update, huh?” Masayuki replied.
Given that we came up with all that only just now, “it’s
about time” wasn’t too appropriate. But our last “system
update” went just fine.
“Sounds good to me!” Ramiris nodded, as if she knew
what we were talking about. I flashed her a quizzical look,
and she quickly averted her eyes. I suppose that little sneak
was just trying to ride along on the wave. Mjöllmile looked
confused, and Veldora was back to his usual shrill laughing,
but I didn’t mind. Masayuki and I looked at each other and
nodded.
The following evening arrived.
My days were now full of serious work. They were
usually spent inspecting projects around town—no, it
wasn’t just a leisurely walk, I promise—and each night, I’d
receive reports in my personal office. Rigurd was handling
a lot of my affairs, but a fair number of them still required
my personal approval, so I had an office set up in our
government building for that.
“Sir Rimuru,” Shion said as she handed me a sheaf of
papers, “here’s your report from Sir Mjöllmile.” She was a
hard worker—almost like a real secretary. Kind of
surprising.
“Yes, thank you,” I said, trying to sound all haughty as I
accepted the report. Mjöllmile was already getting started
on what we discussed at yesterday’s meeting.
“Everything’s going well,” I muttered.
“I am delighted to hear,” Diablo said, nodding.
“In hardly any time flat, our tavern sales are up ten
percent. I guess it benefits all our citizens if the low-ranked
adventurers have more money to work with.”
“Indeed. It’s just as you read it, Sir Rimuru.”
Diablo nodded again as he gently poured some tea for
me. It’s not at all like I had read it, actually, but it was
pretty much what I hoped for. I couldn’t be happier. Diablo
was overvaluing me, like he always did, but it didn’t bother
me this time.
I took a sip. “Huh? This tastes different. Did you change
the leaves?”
“Did you not like it?”
“N-no, it’s good, but…”
It wasn’t displeasing at all—maybe just a tad stronger on
the bitterness than usual.
“I-I’ll replace it at once!” an apparently panic-stricken
Diablo said. But he really didn’t need to. It was just fine; no
problems to speak of.
It’s just that Shuna always brings her A game when it
comes to preparing tea—Wait a minute…
“Hey, is this…?”
“Yes, your chief secretary insisted on preparing it
herself. I tasted it to ensure it wasn’t poisonous.”
Um, okay?
That’s a surprise, seeing Shion prepare tea this good.
The even greater surprise, though, was Diablo actually
cooperating with her.
“I never thought you’d go with Shion on that.”
Poison doesn’t work on me anyway, so I assume Diablo
was simply taste testing it, but that made it even more of a
surprise.
“I had no other choice,” he replied with a smile. “Sir
Benimaru was balking at being her taster every day. It was
my first experience ever feeling ill, a chance I’m glad to
have had.”
I really don’t think that’s a necessary experience—but
this time, I definitely needed to thank him. Shion looked
really happy, after all.
She’s really grown, huh? Once upon a time, her home-
cooked cuisine was more hazardous to your health than the
deadliest of poisons, but now here she is getting tea just
right. No magic or skills or anything! Her violin
performance during the festival was another surprise—I’m
being wowed all the time lately. It truly felt like an
emotional moment to me.
“Diablo…thank you.”
“No, no…”
“And Shion? Well done. You did great!”
“Y-yes! Thank you very much!!”
Next time, I think I’ll have Shion pour my refills. It was a
little overly bitter, but I was happy.
Then I recalled that I had never delivered Diablo his
promised reward.
“By the way, I still owe you a reward, don’t I? You did an
excellent job with the Farmus invasion, and here I’ve been
giving you menial labor ever since you got back.”
“No, no, it’s my hope to be of service of you, Sir
Rimuru…”
“Well, yeah, but…”
I had given Hakuro some vacation time. He was off
happily training somewhere with his daughter Momiji.
Gobta, I took to our special elf-run club down on Floor 95.
He didn’t quite deserve a membership card yet, but I
intended to dangle that as a carrot for his future
endeavors. (Of course, he was still off god knows where
with Milim at the moment. Veldora grumbled a bit about
wanting to toughen him up, too, but I hope he doesn’t.
That’s just being cruel by that point.) For Gabil, I had a new
research facility built, beyond the door that Veldora
guarded on Floor 100. He’d be the head of this laboratory,
with Vester as his second-in-command. Gabil would be
overseeing what had grown into a pretty large research
team, so it was a fairly big promotion.
So along those lines, I had given what I thought were
appropriate rewards to everyone. Not doing anything for
Diablo, someone who worked so hard by my side, was out
of the question.
“In that case,” Diablo said as I thought this over, “there
is something I would like your permission for.”
He always had the greatest knack for reading a room
like that.
“Go ahead. Say it.”
“Very well. I was thinking that I would like someone
working under me to handle my more miscellaneous
duties.”
“Oh, like making tea?”
I knew he wasn’t a fan of that. I couldn’t blame him. Why
would a demon as powerful as Diablo willingly brew tea for
a slime? Even I thought that was a bit bonkers.
“Ah, no, not that, Sir Rimuru! Taking care of your
personal affairs is one of my most vital responsibilities! I
am talking about miscellaneous tasks like razing nations to
the ground—someone I could perhaps send in my place to
handle that. I, personally, will always be by your side, Sir
Rimuru.”
He smiled as he said it.
……Come on. That’s real work, not “miscellaneous
tasks.” But to Diablo, I guess taking care of me was more
important than waging wars. I really don’t get what’s in his
mind sometimes.
“Ah. I see. But I can’t have someone with that kind of
power working under you…”
Someone with the intelligence and muscle to take down
an entire country? It’d have to be someone like Benimaru
or Soei. I wanted to make Diablo’s wish come true, but this
was asking a little too much. However, it turns out I was
jumping to conclusions.
“No, no, I have no intention at all of standing above Sir
Benimaru or anything of the sort. There are some old
acquaintances of mine I am considering, so I thought I
would invite him.”
So he wanted to hire some people? I didn’t have any
problem with that.
“That sounds fine by me, but will you need some
money?”
I imagined he would, which is why I asked, but Diablo
smiled and shook his head. “No, I doubt they would be
interested in money. In place of that, however, they will
need some manner of vessel to serve as their physical
bodies.”
Ahhh, now I get it.
,If this is an acquaintance of Diablo’s,
it’s probably gonna be another demon.
“All right. Is it okay if it’s something like what I gave to
Beretta?”
If Diablo insisted on a human corpse, we were gonna
have problems. Things were a bit different now from when
I first summoned him.
“Yes, I’ll ensure they don’t complain.”
Then fine.
Ramiris was just bugging me, in fact, about providing
physical bodies for Treyni’s sisters as well. I said yes, since
they could help us run the labyrinth. Maybe I should craft a
few extra bodies while I’m at it, just in case.
“That’s fine by me, then, but is that the only payment
they’ll want?”
“That is not a problem. But I think that the protégés I am
considering each have a staff of their own as well. I was
thinking about bringing them on, too. Is that all right?”
As breathlessly confident as always, I see. It’s like he
never once considered the thought of being turned down.
“I can’t pay them, but would they care?”
“If you can provide them with physical bodies, they will
gladly serve you, Sir Rimuru!”
He was so sure of it. And if he was, I had nothing to say.
But there is one thing I better ask.
“So how many people are you expecting to serve you?”
By his manner of speech, I was picturing a small handful,
but I needed to know how many bodies I should prepare to
make.
“Well, I was thinking perhaps several hundred; a
thousand at most.”
“That’s a lot!!”
A thousand at most? And they’re all demons? What kind
of doomsday army was he tryin’ to build?!
“What, are you trying to have a war by yourself?!”
“No, no, I’d hardly expect them to battle me. Even if they
did, I doubt it would be a hard fight for me.”
And so deadpan about it, too. Where does all that
confidence of his come from?
“Are you…gonna be okay, though?”
“Yes, perhaps there is no need for such a large number.
Very well. I will carefully choose among them and dispose
of the unnecessary—”
“No, I didn’t mean that! I’m asking if you’re gonna be
okay!”
Diablo gave me one of his happy smiles. “There will not
be a problem,” he declared.
Well, now it just seemed ridiculous to worry about him.
For all I knew, Diablo may very well be stronger than me. If
he says it’s not a problem, there was no point in me
protesting.
“All right. I’ll prepare a thousand vessels for you.”
“You will, Sir Rimuru?”
“Sure. I need to reward you anyway. So try not to get
yourself hurt doing this, all right?” I didn’t think I needed
to worry, but I went ahead and said it anyway.
Diablo bowed at me, overcome with emotion. “Very well,
then. It pains me to say this, Sir Rimuru, but I hope you will
forgive my absence for a period of time as I prepare.”
Part of me just wanted to say “yeah, yeah, yeah” to him.
“You can leave things to me for now. Get going.”
Shion sounded like she was showing someone she
disliked the door. I could kind of empathize with her. She
must’ve been feeling the same way I did.
Wasting no time to strike while the iron was hot, Diablo
decided to head right out on his journey. To be honest, I
was a little anxious about having Shion be my only
secretary, but—hell—Shuna was there for emergencies, and
I doubted anything too hairy would happen. Such were my
thoughts as I saw Diablo off with a smile.
CHAPTER 2
LIVELY DAYS
A few days after our previous meeting, a party finally made
it past Floor 30.
This was Masayuki’s team, and just as he had worked
out with Mjöllmile, they were making their way down the
Dungeon at a steady clip. It was fixed, I’ll freely admit that,
but what the general public didn’t know wouldn’t hurt
them. Besides, with his Chosen One skill, Masayuki can
make some pretty big screwups and still look squeaky-clean
to everyone around him. I couldn’t ask for a better
advertising partner.
So we held a big announcement inside the labyrinth that
the orc lord guarding Floor 30, as well as his five
henchmen, had been slain. The results were electrifying.
Cheers erupted from the inns and taverns people gathered
at.
“Maaaa-sa-yuuu-ki! Maaaa-sa-yuuu-ki!!”
You could hear it all across town, and Masayuki reacted
to the chants with a casual smile. His expression was stiff,
to say the least, but to the crowds, it must’ve looked like a
radiant smile. Once again, Masayuki’s fame and popularity
had risen to the stars. Some shops even held “Masayuki the
Hero Thirty-Floor Commemoration” sales. With all the
excitement—and all the merchants whose eyes sparkled at
the potential profits—things were, to say the least, lively.
Now we were holding another meeting in the conference
room we had built in the labyrinth.
“Ah, the populace loves you more than ever, don’t they,
Hero?”
“Rimuru, can you not pick on me, please? It’s hard!”
I thought my choice of greeting would be a fun way to
break the ice, but he really did seem overwhelmed.
“Truly an excellent performance! Magnificent! Stirring!”
Mjöllmile couldn’t help but join in. He really meant it,
too, making Masayuki snicker a little. Now I see. If this is
how everyone reacted to him, I could understand how that
would get tiring.
“I really didn’t do much of anything, though.”
“Oh, there you go again! You’re such a modest
champion, Sir Masayuki.”
I doubted Masayuki was being modest at all. An ogre
lord ranks a B-plus as a monster, and its henchmen would
all be B level, too. One B-ranked monster could threaten
the existence of a small village, and here we had a small
group of such monsters, so beating Floor 30 requires
serious talent…but Masayuki’s team emerged from that
battle without any major issues.
The Mithril Armor I gave Jinrai did a lot to boost his
defense, so the party’s strategy involved keeping the
monsters’ attention squarely on him—an effective one, as it
turned out. The rest of the party was pretty decent, too,
focusing their attacks to unlock some pretty powerful
magic. Bernie’s elemental magic, Jiwu’s spirit magic, and
Masayuki’s Chosen One–based buff effect all worked
together to raise their abilities to their peaks.
Masayuki said he didn’t do anything, but—really—he
played a huge role just standing there.
“Still… Not that it’s for me to say, but we couldn’t ask for
much better advertising. Having Rare equipment from a
distinct series show up in the chests is quite attractive to a
lot of people.”
“Right? I came up with that one.”
Equipment that unlocked special effects if you completed
the whole set—that was an idea I discussed with Kurobe,
and the memory of that discussion inspired him to make a
test set, the so-called Ogre Series. The gold box inside
Floor 30’s boss room awards you with one random item
from that set, which was really a diabolical way of going
about it.
There were five weapons—an ax, sword, bow, saber, and
knife—and five pieces of armor—the helm, breastplate,
gauntlets, gaiters, and boots. (No shield included.) What
you got was completely down to luck—you were guaranteed
an Ogre Series item, but you didn’t even know whether
you’d get a weapon or a piece of armor.
Plus, keep in mind, there was no guarantee you’d see a
series piece drop. The gold box the boss guarded was
programmed to drop Rare items 2 percent of the time.
Even if you beat the ogre lord once an hour, that box would
still only contain twenty-four items a day—you’d be lucky to
see a Rare drop every other day, at that rate.
It’s the perfect drop rate, in fact, to encourage the
gambler side of people’s psyches. It’s human nature to
want to collect ’em all; if you obtained a piece you already
had, you could always trade or sell it. Now people had yet
another reason to tackle the labyrinth.
“And we picked up the Ogre Greaves.”
“Yeah, and if you can find all five armor pieces, it’ll grant
you Magic Interference, which is a powerful Anti-Magic
skill. Real effective against the boss at Floor 40, hint, hint.”
It was the same effect boasted by the Scale Shield I
gifted Kabal a while back. That shield gave you the effect
by itself, but
,with the Ogre Series, you needed the whole
armor set to unlock it. That’s the difference between a
Unique piece of equipment and a Rare one. And to be
honest, the Ogre Series was made from the magisteel we
salvaged from the by-products of processing the shield-like
scales of Charybdis. This meant it was already a powerful
magic blocker, effective against the tempest serpent’s
Poisonous Breath, and I hoped people were excited about
collecting them.
“Oh, really?”
“Uh-huh. So the tactic I’m hoping people adopt going
forward is to collect the whole set before taking on the next
boss.”
With Masayuki’s team conquering Floor 30, we had now
formally announced the Ogre Series. It wouldn’t be long
before the information spread worldwide, and I’m sure it’d
energize even more would-be challengers to try their own
hand at the labyrinth.
Parties were allowed to be up to ten people in the
Dungeon. No matter how strong a group of monsters you
found in there, if you had a party of adventurers ranked B
or higher, there was nothing they had zero chance
defeating. It’d be a trial-and-error process ahead for them,
I’m sure, but if they think of it as training for group battles
against monsters, I think it’d be good experience for them.
I definitely want them to build up their equipment for the
floors beyond, besides.
Everything was going to plan. We didn’t miss a thing.
“That’s your idea, huh…? So you think we need to
complete the series?”
“Well, that’s a good question. The Mithril Armor I gave
Jinrai is a Rare piece as well. It’s got no special traits, but it
provides better defense than the Ogre Breastplate. You
could just keep pushing and beat the tempest serpent that
way, maybe.”
The serpent was a tough foe, but there’d be only one of
it. Tackle it with a party, and your strategy would probably
involve keeping a decoy healed while the rest of the gang
fought. That would be Jinrai with this group, and I figured
he’d be up to the task.
“All right. In that case, we’ll keep going down.”
“Gotcha. Good luck, okay? Because you’re the best
pitchman we got!”
“Jinrai and the others are a lot more enthusiastic about
this than I am, but yeah. I think having monsters drop
items is kinda adding to the fun, too. It’s always exciting to
discover a chest, but…”
The simple idea of having monsters drop items turned
out to be absolutely the correct thing to do. Some monsters
—skeletons, for example—didn’t have any materials to
harvest, and their magic crystals could often be low quality
and worth pocket change. The stronger an explorer you
were, the more of a pain in the ass monsters like that
became to deal with, but now things had changed. The
creatures that parties used to reluctantly mow down were
now getting actively hunted again.
With monster materials circulating more than ever in the
marketplace, I couldn’t ask for better results.
Giving labyrinth-generated monsters items was actually
pretty simple. The dryads, led by Treyni, helped us out with
that, taking newly born monsters and having them swallow
the items. That sounded tricky, given that monsters may
appear anywhere in the labyrinth and you can’t track them
all. In fact, though, there was no need to.
The flow of magicules in each floor was supplied with
special pipes. These pipes were set up to run through
certain rooms from Floor 5 downward, rooms that
subsequently would have lots of monsters born in them.
Monster lairs, you could call them. To manage the
labyrinth, Treyni and the dryads would place the items I
specified in each of these rooms; the monsters would
swallow them up, and then the dryads released them into
the maze at large.
Tracking all the monsters generated in the labyrinth was
a pain, but one greatly reduced by only having to watch
over the monster lairs on each floor. Monsters who self-
generated in the regular corridors wouldn’t carry any
items, but that wasn’t a problem—we didn’t need every
single monster to drop something anyway.
Thus, we had a reasonably efficient way to enable
monsters to carry items around on each floor. I originally
envisioned the monster lairs as a kind of trap, but now they
were more like administrative pens. Of course, you might
see a hapless party tiptoe into these rooms right when they
were packed to the rafters with monsters…but hey, it adds
to the tension! It’s all part of the charm for everyone—you
never know what you may find around the corner.
“And the appraisers are working around the clock! We’re
charging one silver per appraisal, but there’s pretty much a
line at all times.”
From slain monsters, you may find flasks of fruit juice or
milk, magically treated to keep for several days, plus a few
Low Potions mixed in. Some of these drinks might go bad
after a while, of course, so an appraisal was a must. We
also threw in some of the failed efforts from Kurobe’s
apprentices, junk that we then bought off them for cheap.
This might sound like we were taking a loss on them, but
they’re kind of like crane-game prizes—reinvesting our
profits in order to attract more customers.
And speaking of prizes, we had to have some jackpots, of
course. Occasionally, we’d mix in a masterpiece from
Kurobe’s assistants. This, of course, generated a ton of
buzz, with people going around town showing off the
Special sword or whatever that they picked up inside the
labyrinth. It really added that addictive touch we were
hoping for; now, like ants to a hill of sugar, we were seeing
people come back again and again.
So we had booty in the treasure chests, monetary
rewards for beating every tenth floor, and plunder from the
monsters themselves. A lot to attract repeat business with.
Thus, it was fair to say that the labyrinth was going well.
It was perhaps inevitable that more people were showing
up in the town.
“And Floor 95 is just packed!” effused Ramiris, the
others nodding their agreement.
Yes, the new inn on Floor 95 was already a big success.
Each floor had a conspicuous room before the stairway
containing a rather unnatural-looking door reading INN on
it. There was a bell next to each one; explorers rang it to
call for a labyrinth manager who’d explain what lay beyond
the door and how they could take advantage of it.
One silver coin was required to open it, not much less
than admission to the labyrinth, but to regulars, that wasn’t
going to be a big outlay. The majority of people who heard
the manager’s spiel wound up paying, after all. And there
was a good reason for that—the ever-changing labyrinth
structure.
Thanks to all the corridors and such changing every two
or three days, it was much trickier to conquer a floor than
its size suggested. Few people could advance through a
huge map without getting lost, and we had measures in
place to prevent elementalists from relying on Elemental
Communication too much. It was now a challenge to find
the shortest route through a floor, and as a result, you
really couldn’t reach the save point at every tenth floor in a
single day. Thus, until now, parties were forced to camp out
in the corridors.
“I’ve never slept in an open corridor before like that,
actually.”
“Oh?” I turned to Masayuki. “How was it? Seems pretty
fun.”
“Hah! Maybe for you, Rimuru, but if you’re sleeping on
cold, hard stone, you’re gonna get terribly sore and maybe
bruised up. The other two guys besides Bernie and me
seemed pretty used to it, but…”
Not even Jiwu, a woman, objected to roughing it like
that. But to Masayuki, sleeping in shifts to keep a lookout
for monster attacks was nothing short of hell.
“Ah. Sounds rough.”
“Can you give me some actual pity, please? Because I
never wanna do that again, that’s for sure.”
I suppose it would be an ordeal for most modern-day
kids, whether you were an otherworlder or not. You could
secure a treasure-chest chamber or some such and set up
camp there, of course. But you’d still need someone
keeping watch, since some monsters
,constantly wandered
the hallways without rest. In those circumstances,
providing a safe place to rest was unexpectedly popular.
There was also the question of what to do with the
equipment you found inside. Discarding it would be a
waste, since—as we planned it—there may just be a rare
find among things that might seem like junk at first. But
between your sleeping kit, a few days’ worth of food, and
backup equipment, you had only so much room to spare.
When space is of the essence, food is often the first thing
to go. If you ran out of stores, you’d have little choice but to
retreat, although some monsters left behind edible goods
when defeated. Water could be procured with magic, so a
lot of people made do with the barest minimum of
sustenance. If you were at the end of your rope, you could
always die and get transported back with your Resurrection
Bracelet—that cost you your items, but it beat struggling
with starvation.
Along those lines, people were starting to reconsider the
merits of the return whistles. Since they let you return to
the surface with all your items, more and more people were
starting to purchase them.
Thus, a consequence of the labyrinth’s new emphasis on
dropped items was that people tended to carry less food
around than before. So what if we had an inn available
down there? If you’re well enough to reach a stairway, the
inn was there for you, obviating the need for food or a sleep
sack and making your pack a lot lighter.
Yes, if an inn were available, a lot of people would
naturally want to take advantage. They provided safe
rooms for three silver coins, the same as labyrinth
admission; between that and the access fee, you had to pay
double or triple the price of a regular inn to stay there, but
at least you got a meal with it.
Those three coins gave you access to a building divided
by gender, filled with capsule hotel-like rooms just large
enough for a bed and little else. I’m not going to talk this
place up too much—your money didn’t get you luxury. I was
having some treants run it for us, and the work was carried
out by new staff as an on-the-job education program.
Cleaning, laundry, cooking, customer service—our hires
would get to practice all of that here, and if they make the
grade, they’ll be able to find work up on the surface.
Despite the rustic conditions, the inn still found its
clientele. Your money bought you safety in the labyrinth,
after all, and nobody was about to complain about that. We
also provided a few extra services for additional fees.
Clothes laundering: three silver. Access to a large open
bath: three silver. Equipment cleaning and basic repairs:
five silver. That sort of thing.
These services were all kind of popular, actually.
Extended rounds of fighting in the labyrinth could make
you a bloody, sweaty mess, after all. The bath was also a
big hit, which I figure is because women might be more
sensitive to people stinking up the place. Either way, it was
all at exorbitant prices compared to the surface, so our
profit margins were through the roof.
You were allowed to take a break in this space without
getting a room, speaking of which. Simply having access to
a bathroom you wouldn’t get ambushed in was a huge
attraction. Masayuki suggested I look into that, and when I
did, I found that was, well, a pressing concern for
everyone. There were no flush toilets in the labyrinth, and
since you were on the razor’s edge between life and death
for much of your journey, you often had to resign yourself
to some wet trousers, or worse.
The labyrinth itself never needed cleaning, though. The
generated monsters cleaned everything up for us—in
particular, the slimes in the labyrinth ate anything. Human
waste, the remains of dead monsters, you name it.
Monsters of that rank popped right back into existence
after an adventurer killed them, so hygiene wasn’t a
concern, at least. Plus, every time the labyrinth layout
changed, Ramiris cleared out any useless garbage strewn
around, ensuring the Dungeon remained in remarkably
spotless condition.
Of course, this didn’t mean people were comfortable
with dropping trou and doing their business in the middle
of a monster-laden hallway. The labyrinth management
didn’t want their maze to look like an open sewer, and our
challengers weren’t great fans of that, either. If they got
attacked by monsters in the midst of a bathroom break, it’d
probably make them want to cry—yelling “Time out!” didn’t
work against monsters. You’d need someone keeping watch
for you, for number one as well as number two, and I know
I’m speaking for at least some of you when I say that going
to the bathroom in an open hallway while encircled by your
friends is the perfect formula for performance anxiety.
Maybe a quick whiz would work—well, maybe not. If a
monster caught you with your fly down and you had to fight
like that… Or, even worse, you put it back in and had to
piss your pants during the battle—ugh. I don’t even want to
imagine it. You’d probably just want to march right back
home, but then you’d have to go tromping around the city
of Rimuru with a huge urine stain on your pants, like you
lost a bet or something.
A man might be able to cope with this; I can hardly
imagine how a woman would handle it. For some, death
might be better than the humiliation. And considering that
lots of adventuring parties were mixed gender, toilet-
related practicalities were another incentive for people to
use our inn.
By the way, some people tried to solve this problem with
magic. Certain “household magic” spells like Clean Wash
and Health Management can help you maintain normal
bodily functions inside the labyrinth. Health Management,
in particular, allows you to manage the times at which your
body needs to eliminate. There were certain limits, of
course, but you could use that spell to hold it in for around
three days without issue. Unless you were the type of
maniac who didn’t care if he sprayed his waste all over
during battle, this was a must-have spell for adventuring.
Still, Health Management didn’t work forever. If you
were gonna wander around the maze for extended periods
of time, relying strictly on magic was risky. Thus, it came to
pass that even sorcerers and the like saw fit to call upon
the inn’s services.
So labyrinth management was all systems go for now.
Mjöllmile couldn’t have looked more pleased with himself.
“It’s going along perfectly well,” he said. “We’re seeing a
rising trend in our profits. Even subtracting the expenses
incurred with the item drops we’re distributing, I’m beyond
satisfied with our margins—I’m looking at around ten
percent right now, from our original investment. My goal is
twenty percent, and if we can attract more customers, I
think we can make that happen.”
Hmm. So about what we figured, overall. And since I was
having him report the items we provide at their sale prices
instead of our own costs, we were actually making more
profit. That and we weren’t paying a salary to the
townspeople involved with the work, so all of that was
going straight into our coffers.
“It seems like we could start investing more into it.”
“If we do, it’ll be a while longer before we see
government-scale profits, but I think we could get in the
black before an extended amount of time.”
If profit was all I cared about, we could just sell what we
created at high prices. But as a nation, that wasn’t enough
to survive. There were people in town involved in many
kinds of work; we needed to make sure it was divided up
appropriately, so they could do their best at their jobs.
That’s why I thought it was important to set up an
environment where everyone’s satisfied with their work. As
the ruler of this nation, it was job one for me to provide
work—or really, a purpose in life—for everyone who lived in
it.
“Yeah, but I feel bad about them working for free…”
“Well,” Mjöllmile said with a grin, “if you
,factored the
average salary in Blumund into our figures, we have more
than enough of a budget to pay that to our employees.
Whether they’ll accept it is another question…”
To a merchant like him, free labor must have been
unthinkable. I could understand that. You didn’t exactly
need to ponder the subject deeply to see the problem. We
were providing food, clothing, and shelter, and everyone
seemed happy enough with that…but it didn’t seem like a
good work environment at all like this. I did want to
compensate them all somehow, in time, but Raphael was
doing a perfect job of managing them, so nobody had
lodged any complaints about their treatment. Nonetheless,
I decided I’d better bring this up with Rigurd and my other
officials shortly.
But even as my subjects happily worked for nothing, one
of my other acquaintances was much more faithful to her
own greed.
“Um, by the way, is my payment gonna be all right?”
Ramiris nervously gulped as she asked the question. All
this talk must’ve made her think I was gonna stiff her. She
didn’t have to worry; I keep my promises. So I signaled to
Mjöllmile, who then nodded with a smile of his own.
“You have every reason to expect it,” he proclaimed,
trying to sound as important as possible. “I think we can
pay you quite a figure, in fact!”
Ramiris gave that a satisfied grin. “This is it!” she
exclaimed.
“Huh? What is?”
“My era—the era of Ramiris has finally arrived!”
Had it? Because I wasn’t so sure. But Treyni, bringing
some tea in, warmly smiled at Ramiris as she guffawed at
this. I always thought Treyni was overprotective of her—
love can be smothering like that—but I wasn’t about to get
involved in their affairs.
“Do I receive any of this payment?”
Oh, now Veldora’s interested in money? That’s the last
thing I need…but we do owe him one. I gave another nod to
Mjöllmile.
“Yes, of course, we have a payment prepared for you as
well. Would you be satisfied with the same amount Lady
Ramiris is set to receive?”
Mjöllmile and I had worked this out in advance. Veldora,
after all, was acting as the “master” of this labyrinth—not
that he had to do anything, really, but it was his magicules
that kept the Dungeon environment running. His
converting magic ore to magisteel for us, in and of itself,
generated huge profits for Tempest. I didn’t think it right to
try to cheat him.
“Ah! Wonderful! I knew I could count on you, Rimuru. I
see that I’ll always be safe in your hands.”
“Don’t go wasting it, you two.”
“Of—of course not!”
“Y-yeah, of course not! I know how to save money!”
Knowing how, Ramiris, doesn’t mean much if you don’t
do it. But they both looked pretty gratified, so I opted not to
rain on their parade.
“Ha-ha-ha! Of course, they’re free to squander at least a
little of it. Money, after all, is something you save because
you know how much fun it is to use!”
“Ooh, yes, yes!” agreed Ramiris. “That’s such an astute
insight, Mjöllmile!”
Mollie, if you coddle Ramiris like that, she’s gonna run
with it. Treyni is a great example of how not to handle her.
“I suppose so, yes. And I have experience working at
that takoyaki stand. Now I see what a noble thing work is,
as well as how vital money can be. Rimuru, you worry
about me far too much!”
You’re one to talk. I was the one who arranged that
whole damn takoyaki stand for you, and Mjöllmile pulled
more than a few strings to make it happen. All you did was
grill up the damn things!
I had to mentally restrain myself from saying all that.
There’s no better teacher than experience, I suppose. Let
’em do what they want. Even if it blows up in their faces, as
long as they learn something from it, we’re good.
“So, Mjöllmile, how are things looking outside the
labyrinth?” I asked.
I knew things were moving fast around town, but how
were things really going? I was curious.
Mjöllmile smirked at me. “Brisk indeed! That’s the only
word for it. The festival is long over, but really, we haven’t
seen any major drop in our population. We now have a
pretty steady clip of merchants going in and out, and I
think that’s going to be quite stable for the time being.”
“Would you say the town is starting to function as a
stopping point for trade?”
“Precisely. Merchants are starting to come see me so
they can begin to do business here. They’re not going
through intermediaries all the time, either, so Sir Rigurd
has a rather full schedule these days. From Free Guild
members to big-name merchants from the Western Nations,
they’re all inquiring about opening up shop here.”
Sounds better than I thought, then. The Founder’s
Festival was meant to prime the pump, and in terms of
attracting people, it was a big success. Now the labyrinth
I’d made for fun was building a good rep of its own,
winning favor with all our visitors. After that, all we had to
do was fine-tune things to keep the money flowing. I
wanted people to challenge the labyrinth, earn money, then
spend it on our nation’s goods—not just our inns and
taverns, but weapons, armor, and other consumables.
I’m sure our merchants from other nations would play a
big role in that. The Free Guild purchases monster
materials, then deposits the money with us. Foreign
merchants would bring us rare and exotic goods, no doubt
—and at the end of it all, our town would be livelier than
ever. Give it enough time, and people the world over would
know just how fine this nation’s goods are. We’ve got a lot
of exclusive things to offer—rare foods and liquor; all the
cuisine Shuna was developing; the gear from Kurobe’s
workshop. Even Kaijin’s apprentices were helping flesh out
the selection. That wasn’t even all of it, and the selection
was only going to grow.
Word about all this could easily spread by now. Even
without advertising, we’d have no problem attracting
customers—and at the end of it, people the world over
would accept us and see us as necessary. I was sure of it.
What’s more, some of the gear made in Kurobe’s
workshop was on sale as “special merchandise” at certain
shops. The gear circulating in these shops was doubtlessly
going to generate attention—and while different stores
dealt in different levels of quality, if you had the money, you
could buy it for yourself, although anything from them
rated Rare or higher would be available for purchase only
on Floor 95.
I’m sure some people might doubt this gear’s
capabilities, but that wasn’t a big problem. We’ve got a
place right by here, after all, that lets you test out what you
bought. We rented it out to people in the labyrinth, even,
although not too many people had taken advantage yet. It’d
only be a matter of time, either way, before they used that
gear and began talking up how good it was.
Little by little, we were building trust in our nation.
Trust is more important than profit. I’m not about to go into
the red for the sake of trust, but as long as we stayed in the
black overall, I’d call that a success. We’re not in this to
make money; we’re in it to get our nation accepted.
“Sounds like exactly what we aimed for. Even if
Tempest’s a monster nation, if merchants can see profits,
they’ll come for us. The labyrinth’s seeing more and more
visitors, and I think we can build a relationship with the
Western Nations, too.”
Mjöllmile nodded. “Smooth sailing, indeed. And yes,
more and more visitors are coming. People know it’s a
monster nation run by a demon lord, and they’re still
coming. Just as you surmised, I think it’s safe to say that
people are trusting us.”
He was in firm agreement. But he’s a funny guy, that
Mjöllmile. He said “us” just now. From that, it seems to me
that despite being human, he’s fully looking at matters
from our perspective. I’m glad for that.
We can’t earn trust overnight. Trust is gained in drops
and lost in buckets—that’s the truth. And maybe we’re
stimulating people’s greed to bring them here, but there’s
no easier thing to connect to trust. If you think that
,someone can address and satisfy your desires, that’s the
same thing as earning their trust. Mjöllmile’s a good
example of that; we’re connected by a desire-based trusting
relationship.
Do good work and receive just profit from it—that’s
really important, I think. And, of course, it’s no fun if that’s
a one-way street. You need to look at the other side of the
equation and figure out if you can trust them. Right now,
we’ve got the perfect environment for training ourselves on
that. We’ve got a teacher in Mjöllmile, and I’m gonna study
as much as I can under him.
Then I paid Ramiris and Veldora their salaries. They both
seemed satisfied with the amount. I told them not to
squander it, but have they thought at all about how they’ll
use it? The question weighed on my mind as we kept
discussing matters.
“Hey, um, do you think we could set up a space for my
personal use?”
“Sure,” Ramiris replied to me, “but what for? You wanna
do some research, too?”
“No, it’s more about development in my case. I have a
few ideas in mind that I want to try building.”
In terms of research, Kurobe was way ahead of me. His
workshop was in the southwest part of town, along with the
workshops of those apprentices he’d deemed worthy of
going independent. That district was seeing weaponsmiths
from all over now, hearing the rumors and building their
own forges and repair shops to compete.
It was a full-fledged industrial zone by now, and as a
result, it was getting hard to keep new discoveries made
there a secret. The atmosphere was more convivial among
those artisans, amicably sharing in one another’s neat new
stuff, so classified project development wasn’t possible.
Instead, my order for Kurobe was to develop new weapons
and armor that nobody could imitate.
Besides, when conducting research, I didn’t actually
need a physical space. I have the good professor Raphael
with me. What I did need, though, was a development
facility to implement the blueprints in my mind.
“Sure thing! I’ll get it set up today.”
Ramiris was eager to please.
So now the hundredth level on the bottom began with
Veldora’s grand hall and continued on to rooms housing a
plethora of research facilities. In terms of keeping the
space defended (not to mention preventing leaks), I
couldn’t ask for someplace safer. In fact, it was
impregnable. Let’s use it for really important R&D from
now on, then.
“But what are you tryin’ to make down there, Rimuru?”
Ramiris asked me.
“It’s a secret.”
“Huh? But I really wanna know! You’re always cranking
out all kinds of crazy things, so…”
“Indeed you are,” said Veldora. “There will be no secrets
between you and me!”
Oh, great. Who decided that? And I knew full well
Ramiris and Veldora were doing this and that behind my
back, too. But they were always so persistent with things
like this, and I didn’t have the energy to try to deceive
them, so I gave them an answer.
“They’re bodies. I’ve been thinking about providing
physical vessels for Treyni’s sisters.”
Plus the ones Diablo requested, of course. If I needed a
thousand, painstakingly carving them by hand wasn’t
gonna happen. I needed a setup that allowed mass
production.
“And give me as much space as you can, by the way,
okay? I want to try out a few different things.”
“Comin’ right up! Anything for my faithful underlings!”
Ramiris was emphasizing the “underling” part, but she
agreed, nonetheless. Heh-heh… Good thing I let her in on
part of my plans. Now I’ll have the space to try all sorts of
things. Up to now, I didn’t have the time to make the things
I came up with; now I could start implementing some of
those ideas. The thought made me grin.
I spent the next few days setting up my development
equipment and tapping Raphael’s full abilities for the first
time in a while and copying all sorts of things within my
Stomach. Any tech I wanted to pass on to future
generations couldn’t rely on this, of course, but I didn’t
intend to share it with anyone anyway, so all inhibitions
were out the window.
Then I heard someone calling me from behind the door.
Eesh. I was just getting into a groove, too—
Report. You have not communicated with the outside
world for several days. There is a possibility that something
has happened.
Come to think of it, I had been skipping out on meals,
hadn’t I? Raphael’s observation reminded me that maybe
I’d been a little too caught up in my own world. Even if
nothing was going on at all, it’s natural that Shion or Shuna
would get worried. Better make my rounds—now was a
good stopping point anyway.
Replying to the voice I heard, I left my research center.
As expected, Shuna and Shion were right there.
“Sir Rimuru, are you all right?!”
“I was worried. You didn’t even appear for the meals you
enjoy each day, so I thought that something might have
happened.”
Ah. So they were concerned for me.
“Sorry. I got a little lost in thought.”
“N-no, not at all! As long as you’re safe…”
“Shion is right. With all the hard work you’ve been
doing, of course, nobody will complain if you want to take
some more time off.”
Once they saw I was fine, they were all smiles again.
Now I felt kind of bad. They really cared a lot for me.
“Well, I’ll make sure to check in at least once a day from
now on.”
“That would make me very happy, Sir Rimuru.”
Yeah, better not get too wrapped up in my hobbies.
Having someone worried for you is, in itself, a blessing.
As I let the remorse wash over me, Shion suddenly spoke
up, as if just recalling something.
“By the way, Sir Mjöllmile has been searching for you
since yesterday.”
Huh?
“Then he should’ve called for me.”
“He did, but there was no response… I apologize. We
should have been louder.”
“No, uh, sorry I didn’t notice. I’ll set up a doorbell or
something next time.”
Shion didn’t seem too perturbed about it; I guess she
didn’t think it was too important. But after seeing how
Mjöllmile was still hot to see me the next day, she grew a
bit more concerned and talked to Shuna about it.
Apparently, it was labyrinth business, but Shion didn’t
know what kind. Did he figure Shion wouldn’t understand it
if he explained it to her, or was it something he was
reluctant about letting Shion in on? I wondered about that.
Guess Diablo was a lot more talented than I thought,
though. At a time like this, he would’ve absolutely found a
way to attract my attention. In fact, he probably would’ve
joined me at my research desk. Maybe that made Diablo
more selfish than Shion, if you think about it—but enough
about that. Mjöllmile’s waiting for me.
Shuna had prepared a boxed sandwich for my lunch.
Shion brewed up some tea. I was enjoying both as I waited
for my finance minister.
“Ah, Sir Rimuru! I was looking for you. We’ve got big, big
news from the labyrinth!”
I was in full relaxation mode, but Mjöllmile was frantic.
“What? What is it?” I asked, wondering if our user base
was complaining about something again.
“Following Sir Masayuki, we’ve got another team that
made it past Floor 30.”
“Oh? Cool. That’s faster than I thought.”
“I wouldn’t be so calm about that, Sir Rimuru! They’re
practically sprinting their way down! In fact, they’re almost
at Floor 40 already!”
Um… Oh. Yeah, maybe I shouldn’t be so casual about
this. But I didn’t see what was worth getting in such a
panic about.
What Mjöllmile said next convinced me otherwise.
“And their methods are, well… They’re making a science
out of skirting the labyrinth’s rules. For example…”
He then began to explain. And he was right. I hadn’t
predicted this at all.
………
……
…
As he put it, this party had come upon fairly ingenious
ways of using Ramiris’s labyrinth items.
First, they activated a Recording Crystal in front of the
boss monster on Floor 20. One Crystal works for an entire
party, so even if the boss wiped them out, they could revive
themselves at the location they set for themselves. That
was within expected bounds—so far, so good.
,recover—given her demon lord roots and experience with
life-or-death situations, she’d always be the quickest on her
feet.
“Fair enough, but it was bound to happen sooner or
later, wasn’t it? That slime truly is a threat. So how should
we revise our plan, Boss?”
“Well, we’ll stay on the quiet side, like before. As long as
Rimuru has nothing damning against us, I doubt he’ll
decide to get openly hostile. He might look like he’s playing
it all by ear, but he’s actually a pretty meticulous leader.
I’m sure he’s worked out everything he stands to gain and
lose.”
“All right. Him telling us about the ancient ruins was
probably his way of feeling out how we’d react, then. His
way of saying Try anything funny, and I won’t go easy.”
“I think you’re right. People have a way of changing their
minds on you. They even have a saying for it—Yesterday’s
foe is today’s friend. So if we can make him think that
now’s not the time to fight, no matter what’s changed, I’d
call that a victory for us.”
Yuuki looked around at his companions, gauging their
reactions.
“So we’re gonna stay buddy-buddy with ’im?”
“We could easily make him do our bidding, but if that’s
your take, Boss, very well.”
“How stupid are you, Footman? We’re having all this
trouble because we can’t do that.”
“Nah, nah, I get where Footman’s comin’ from, y’know?
It’d annoy anyone if some new guy treats you like dirt.
Thing is, maybe we could win in an all-out war, but they
even got Veldora on their side. I don’t see much point in
bettin’ against the odds right this minute, you get me?”
“Exactly. So it’s best for us to quit overthinking this and
just follow our orders from the boss and our director!”
“Isn’t that what they asked us for from the beginning?
And I’ve got no problem with their takes, either.”
The three Jesters seemed less than enthused but were
still in agreement with their bosses’ general direction.
Once he was assured of that, Yuuki nodded at Kagali.
True power in the Western Nations was largely claimed by
two factions—the Holy Empire of Lubelius (and the Western
Holy Church they backed) and the Council of the West, the
parent organization of the Free Guild (not to mention the
Rozzo family that ruled the Council’s core). Now Tempest,
governed by the demon lord Rimuru, was part of that mix.
And now that he was fresh from the Tempest Founder’s
Festival, Yuuki had come to realize just how foolish it was
to rile Rimuru.
I was a little worried, though. If I declared that I wasn’t
going to fight Rimuru, would these guys be willing to
meekly accept that?
The thought occurred to Yuuki, but it appeared to be
baseless. Kazalim might’ve acted differently, but losing to
Leon once had taught Kagali a little prudence. The Jesters
had been working to realize their ambitions for years; to
them, patience was already a virtue. To Yuuki, it didn’t
seem like any of his faithful companions were hasty enough
to thoughtlessly go out of control.
“I’m glad to see that,” he said with a smile. “Now, I think
I’ll let you take over the work I had assigned to Damrada.”
“Huh? Meanin’…the classified goods?”
“What?! Leaving that work to us?”
“Hoh-hoh-hoh! Are you sure, Boss?”
This instantly unnerved the three Jesters. Yuuki kept
smiling at them.
“Mm-hmm. You can handle that, right?”
“Oh, you’re on, Boss! Yer just worried that we’ll go outta
control and start a buncha crap, aren’tcha? Well, no way
we’re gonna. Even if we think we can win in a fight, we
ain’t gonna so much as lift a finger, I swear to ya!”
“Right, right! Even Clayman lost his cool at the last
minute, after all… If we made the same mistake, I wouldn’t
be able to rib him for it in the afterlife.”
“True enough. Acting from a place of anger only leads to
mistakes. As the Angry Jester of this bunch, that’s
something I’d be particularly prudent to remember. The
demon lord Leon swore revenge against him someday, but I
think that ‘someday’ will need to wait.”
The trio each reassured Yuuki with their own choice of
words. He gave them a light nod.
“You’ve matured more than I thought,” Yuuki muttered,
before recalling something else. “By the way, the mention
of classified goods reminded me—Rimuru brought the
children I took in over to Tempest, didn’t he?”
“Ah yes, the ones Shizue Izawa prevented us from
reaching—”
“Right, those. He had a built-in excuse, wanting them to
see the festival and all, but thinking about it, he really does
suspect me, doesn’t he? Which is fine. I just can’t get what
he said off my mind.”
He paused for a moment. The children were growing
stronger and stronger. That was no doubt because of what
the demon lord Rimuru did to save them. And while he said
it was a secret, he let on to Yuuki that he wanted the kids to
learn more about the spirits within them.
“He kind of glossed over it the last time I asked, but…”
“Perhaps they’ve gotten so strong that there’s no
glossing over the subject any longer.”
“Well, who knows? I got all excited, thinking he had
some kind of scheme in mind for them. But there’s no
doubt that he’s using their elemental spirits to neutralize
the magicule counts in them.”
One could never leave their guard down around the
demon lord Rimuru. A scheme, Yuuki thought, could easily
be in play. He shrugged.
“True,” Kagali said. “And Shizue Izawa was an
elementalist capable of wielding high-level flame elemental.
So is it possible, then, to use spirits to take the ‘failed
Heroes’ that weren’t fully summoned correctly and utilize
them for their intended purposes?”
This seemed to ring a bell with the Jesters.
“Ohh! Is that what Leon was after? He seems to be
collecting otherworlders from failed summonings. You think
he could raise ’em into fighters?!”
“Ah, now I remember! Ifrit used to be in Leon’s service,
too, wasn’t he? Clayman ordered his armies to attack him
several times, but Ifrit killed them all off.”
“Hoh-hoh-hoh! And now he’s using the same method to
create more elementalists like Shizu? Then perhaps he
deserves to receive those classified goods after all.”
They excitedly talked among themselves. Footman may
be right, thought Yuuki. But that left a few things
unexplained.
The classified goods were, in fact, a group of children
that had been subjected to failed summonings. Even now, in
an undisclosed location, these summonings were taking
place again and again—within the Western Nations, while
Shizue Izawa was never informed. More attempts, of
course, meant more failures, and it was Damrada and his
team in the Cerberus group that retrieved them—as they
could never be allowed to become public knowledge. They
were marked as test materials, but there was another
purpose meant for them. That purpose was the demon lord
Leon. And Leon’s order was to gather “otherworlder
children under the age of ten.”
Hmm… Is Leon trying to build more power for a war?
That sounds convincing, but why not do that himself, then?
And by the way he’s leaking new theoretical summoning
techniques to the Eastern Empire and Western Nations, it
seems like he’s got other goals in mind. Better keep an eye
out.
Yuuki couldn’t reach a conclusion yet. Thus, he was
forced to stick with the pact Leon signed with them and
keep up their current obligations.
Yuuki frowned as he gave the Jesters his orders.
“All right. I’ll leave the negotiations with Leon to you. If
you can determine whether he’s trying to improve his
armies or has some other purpose, try to figure it out.
Misha is handling negotiations with the Rozzos, so take the
goods from her and get moving.”
“Roger that. No problem!”
“Yeah, yeah! I’ll do my best!!”
“Hoh-hoh-hoh! Very well.”
Kagali smirked at her enthusiastic group. “Just don’t get
so excited that Leon figures out who you are.”
“Listen, be as careful as you can, okay? We don’t have
the capacity to take on Leon as well right now.”
The trio nodded at Yuuki’s reminder. Laplace and his
cohorts were no fools. His trust placed in them,
,But then,
apparently, they would use a return whistle to warp out of
the labyrinth. And then the party would split up, with each
member going on to form their own party—always with ten
people, the maximum.
“So then, um, all those people…”
“Precisely. It’s no longer a party so much as a small
army.”
What was once a ten-person team was now ten parties, a
total of a hundred people—each of them ranging between
C-plus and B-plus as individuals. Apparently, they all wore a
uniform of sorts, an overcoat with a shared design and a
certain emblem sewn on it. They stood in line, no doubt
unnerving the people around them as they marched in
formation into the labyrinth…and that was the force they
brought straight to the Floor 30 boss.
The rules stated that only one party could engage a boss
at once, but here were ten of them challenging the same
boss, standing in line to wait their turn. The orc lord and
his five henchmen were powerful adversaries, but this army
was no slouch either—and after a heated battle, they finally
took the boss out with the third party of the group.
………
……
…
“I feel like we talked about something similar just
recently.”
“Indeed we did. This is Team Green Fury themselves.”
Ah, there you go. Judging by the matching overcoats,
this must’ve been a set of people working for one noble or
another. The sheer budget they must’ve had for Recording
Crystals made me shiver. “Time is money” and all that, but
those cost one gold coin a pop, and they were tossing them
all over the place.
“Do we know which patron they belong to?”
“I had Lady Soka look into that. Apparently, they’re all
part of the Sons of the Veldt, a pretty well-known
mercenary outfit. She believes their benefactor hails from
Englesia.”
The Sons of the Veldt? I’d never heard of them. But it
was a surprise to hear that one of the core members of the
Western Nations had their eyes on our labyrinth. I seem to
remember one of their affiliate families participating in the
Founder’s Festival…but no one from any of the main noble
lines, I don’t think. Maybe they got a late start, or maybe
they had some other intention…?
“Well, hmm. How to put it? It feels kind of like they’re
paying their way in, which doesn’t leave a great
impression, but it’s not a violation of the rules.”
Annoyingly, we had no reason to clamp down on them. I
understood Mjöllmile’s alarm, but at this point, there
wasn’t much we could do about it.
“Our profits are rising, yes. Lodging a complaint about it
might be unreasonable at this point in time. But if this
keeps up, the floors you spent so much time filling with
traps are going to be conquered in the blink of an eye, it
seems like…”
So Mjöllmile was going nuts looking for me because he
thought someone would beat the whole labyrinth while I
was holed up in here?
“Guess I made you worry, huh? Well, it’ll be all right.
Things don’t really kick off until beyond Floor 40. And I
think the tempest serpent is going to stop ’em in their
tracks for a while anyway. Team Green Fury had some
excellent teamwork going; I think they ranked an A-minus
as a fighting party—but as individuals, they were each
around a B, so I doubted they could hold out against
powerful ranged attacks for long. A tempest serpent is
among the stronger of the A-minus gang, so even ten B-plus
fighters could have trouble emerging victorious against
one.
“Indeed, but judging by what Lady Ramiris and Lord
Veldora tell me, we have reason to believe the leader of
Green Fury is misrepresenting their actual skills…”
Huh?
True, I can’t really run Analyze and Assess on someone
in a video. Like—
Report. Accurate magicule counts cannot be calculated
via Analyze & Assess on a motion picture of battle.
…Right, Raphael warned me as much. I just used that
video footage to assign a rating based off how the Free
Guild ranks its monsters, so I couldn’t really say with any
accuracy exactly how powerful that party is. After all, I was
only ranked a B-plus by the Guild, even though I’m
definitely an S in actual skill. Ranks can differ from talent
like that sometimes. And if someone was deliberately
concealing their skill, we needed to consider addressing
that.
“I think I better hear from Veldora and the gang about
this.”
“Certainly. I’ve already reached out to them, so let’s pay
them a visit!”
That’s Mjöllmile for you. By the time he rounded me up,
he already had everyone else on call. I nodded and stood up
from my seat.
We were back in the labyrinth’s conference room, the usual
gang.
“You are late, Rimuru!” Veldora scolded me.
“Yeah! Look at what happened! You’re the leader—start
acting like it!” Ramiris added.
I’m the leader? That’s news to me. But that didn’t matter
right now.
“So how’s it looking?” I asked.
“It’s looking grim,” replied Ramiris. “They’ve penetrated
all the way to Floor 38 now.”
She began to show me some video of their progress. She
seemed pretty flustered, restless even, as she went over the
footage, projected inside a little transparent box, with me.
The effect was kind of like seeing 3-D miniatures move
around by themselves. Too bad I couldn’t Analyze & Assess
this directly…
…Suggestion. If I receive permission to interact with the
subject Ramiris’s intrinsic skill Mazecraft, it will be possible
to collect more accurate, detailed information.
Oooh! A rare proposal from Raphael. It seemed worth
trying. Let’s ask.
“Ramiris, I have a favor to ask, if that’s okay with you.”
“Huh? Why all the formality?”
“Actually, I was hoping to intervene into your Mazecraft
skill, but what do you think?”
“Intervene? What’re you gonna do, exactly?”
What was I gonna do? I wasn’t too sure myself.
“Well, you know, intervene. I wanted to collect more
information about this labyrinth, sort of thing?”
I made most of that up, attempting to gloss over the
truth with her.
Report. That is generally the truth.
Damn, I’m good. For once, I actually understood
Professor Raphael’s explanation.
“I mean, that’s fine and all, but you sure you can manage
that?”
“Um, why’re you worried about me?”
“It’s just, y’know, there’s a lot of information to go
through. Not even I can fully grasp it, so I usually ditch it
from my mind once I’m done creating it.”
Hmm? Hang on. She called it a lot of data, and she was
probably right. With over a thousand challengers in the
labyrinth at once, plus all the data from each floor, plus
everything else—and we had permanent residents on Floor
95, too. Trying to grasp all of that at once—
Understood. It will not be a problem.
Oh, okay. Apparently, it won’t be a problem.
“Hmm, I think I’ll be fine…?”
“Why are you phrasing it like a question?”
“Now, now, Ramiris, you are in good hands leaving
everything to Rimuru here. There is not a thing for either of
us to worry about!”
I was all anxious, but Veldora was kind enough to
browbeat Ramiris into trusting me.
“Well, all right! I’ll give you the right to intrude into my
Mazecraft skill, then!”
Ramiris touched me, and with that, I instantly had
access to the labyrinth.
Report. Connected to the subject Ramiris’s intrinsic skill
Mazecraft. Now collecting information.
The seemingly impatient Raphael sprang into action. The
moment it did, I… Hmm? Maybe I felt a whole bunch of
data run across my brain? But it didn’t hurt at all. I was
tensed up, prepared for anything, but this was kind of a
letdown.
Report. Analyze and Assess on the Team Green Fury
complete. Their leader is over the A rank, but my appraisal
of the others does not differ greatly from before.
In a moment, Raphael found the info I needed. Talk
about reliable. Then I noticed the Analyze and Assess was
still running. Did something catch its attention?
Understood. Analyzing all battles that have taken place
within the labyrinth…
…so quit bothering me, I thought I heard it say. Which
made sense. There’s no way an average bum like me would
understand the professor’s thoughts. I’m sure it
,was
plotting something grandiose again, but I’ll leave it be for
now.
So back to our meeting.
“I see…”
“Did you learn something, Rimuru?”
“That was fast. It didn’t work, did it?”
Ramiris, to say nothing of Veldora, gave me a doubtful
look. I’m sure they had trouble believing me, as much as
that annoyed me.
“You know,” I said, bragging a little, “this guy’s an A-plus
or so.”
I brought up some other footage from Ramiris, blowing
up the view to make it easier to see.
“Huh?!”
This surprised the whole room, Ramiris more than
anyone else. “Um, Rimuru? Why are you using my skill so
well?!”
“Ha-ha-ha! Well, you gave me the right to intervene, so I
guess that’s why.”
“You’re kidding me! Even I can only show footage from a
set position. I need to personally know someone before I
can track them on here…”
Apparently, Ramiris could only access footage that had
already passed through her labyrinth managers. I could see
why; wrangling all this data in depth was a dizzying task.
“Well, let’s just say I’m more gifted at this for now,” I
said to assuage her as my eyes turned to the image.
The over-A explorer we were following was the
elementalist who led the Green Fury team. If that leader
was hiding so much power, there were likely even more
elementals they were able to tap into. If they had access to
higher-level ones, you could count on them having access
to power several times their own.
“Hohh. When you say ‘over-A,’ are we talking about
monster standards?”
“Right. I think the Free Guild pretty much assigns ranks
based off what rank of monster they think you can beat,
but…”
That, however, was ignoring any safety factors. I think,
to be exact, the standards were based on the scenario of
several adventurers facing off against a monster of that
rank.
“All right, so what about us?”
“You guys…?”
Masayuki, I wasn’t sure about. By the looks of him, he’d
be on the low end of a D—but his unique skill was out of
this world, so put it all together, and he’d be well into the A
range. Saying that would probably give Masayuki the
wrong idea, however, so I decided to keep quiet about it.
Better to obfuscate the truth for now.
“I’d say Jinrai just barely clears the line for an A rank,
but I’m not too sure if he could beat a tempest serpent solo
or not. If he had the complete Ogre Series set, though, it’d
be no sweat for him.”
His Mithril Armor couldn’t fully protect him against
Poisonous Breath; as a foe, the tempest serpent was a bad
matchup for him. Unlike monsters, humans come with a lot
of weaknesses baked in, so to speak—and since this isn’t a
video game, weakness against one attack or another
spelled the difference between life and death. Even if his
core strength made him competitive, the right poison at the
right time could still easily kill him.
“Huh. Jinrai’s really something, huh?”
“Yeah. Although, I think your skill is boosting him in
pretty much every way. And then…who else did you have?
Jiwu and Bernie? I’d pin them both at A-minus.”
It was a great party. Well-balanced, to be sure. Maybe
that’s why Masayuki’s faults never bubbled to the surface.
“Yeah, I definitely have some companions I can count
on.”
“Ha-ha-ha! And given how much more powerful you are
than them, Sir Masayuki, you’re an over-A for sure. After
all, Sir Rimuru himself certified you as a Hero!” Mjöllmile
had nothing but respect as he eyed Masayuki.
I really wish he’d be kind enough to stop. Masayuki was
smiling, but he looked about ready to burst into tears at
any moment.
“But the problem is that it’s not only the Green Fury
leader,” I said. “Over on this team, this guy’s an A; this
guy’s an A… The Sons of the Veldt, they’re all called? They
sure assembled a rogues gallery here.”
“No way! That many high-ranked people?”
“Hmm… Nothing I would have an issue with…”
Yes, if the top members of the Veldt formed a party, even
Floor 50 wouldn’t stop them for long.
“Bovix and Equix are A rank, too, but if it’s one of them
against these two dudes in particular, it’ll be an uphill
battle. And I’d put the Green Fury leader on the same line
as Bovix.”
“That high up?”
“Yeah. I mean, this pair here, they’re about twice as
strong as Jinrai—just comparing their bodily abilities, not
their battle skills.”
The two Veldt standouts were each on the level of a high-
end magic-born. Weaker than Gelmud (that name takes me
back) but certainly stronger than one of the lower-ranked
paladins. Meanwhile, the Green Fury leader was in a class
of their own, too; I wasn’t sure, but I was willing to bet
their skill level in battle was pretty high.
“Looks like they’re summoning magic beasts to run on
ahead and alert them to the traps I set. They’re
professionals, for sure.”
“Yeah, if this keeps up, it’s just a matter of time before
they reach the floors I set up.”
Hmm?
I figured Ramiris would be happier about that. Why all
the tension? I wasn’t too thrilled about this party dodging
all my traps, but she and Veldora were all ramped up about
taking on challengers. Between that and the generally
disturbed way she was acting, was there something else
going on?
“Say, are you hiding something?” I decided to just ask
her point-blank.
Veldora and Ramiris looked at each other, figuring out
how to handle this. Presumably, Ramiris drew the short
straw, because she spoke first.
“Well, in the three days you were holed up in there…”
And the story she had made me want to rub my
forehead, too.
As she explained, Hinata’s Crusaders had begun their
training—beginning with Floor 51, as we agreed upon.
Ramiris had lined Floors 51 through 60 with her own set
of traps, and of course she watched them excitedly as the
paladins went about their business. Adalmann, the guy she
tapped to be the Floor 60 boss monster, had summoned a
massive force of undead, leading to innovations like
corridors of infinitely spawning zombies, oxygen-free rooms
(the dead didn’t have to breathe, after all), and things even
more diabolical than that.
“I was really confident, you know? And those stupid
paladins kept on purifying everything in their path. The no-
oxygen chamber stopped them for a bit, but the people
behind the front-line team just resurrected them, and off
they went…”
“They had the perfect tools for that challenge, huh? Well,
that’s the way it goes sometimes.”
I tried to comfort the depressed Ramiris as she
continued.
Before much longer, the Crusader group reached the
boss on Floor 60. Adalmann was waiting for them, but
again, he was just the kind of opponent the paladins trained
for.
Thinking about it, the results really made perfect sense.
As a wight with none of his own power, Adalmann was only
as good as whatever he could summon. The paladins were
way beyond what he could personally fight off. At the same
time, however, Adalmann was a sort of “elder statesman” in
the eyes of the paladins. He couldn’t just run away from
them, I suppose. Hopefully he didn’t find the experience too
humiliating.
“He wasn’t all depressed, was he?”
“He was…”
Ah. Thought so. Better give him a pep talk later. “So
what happened next?”
“After defeating Adalmann,” said Veldora, “they pressed
on to the floors where my traps were set. I was watching
from above, chuckling over all the pain and turmoil they’d
undoubtedly be about to face, and—”
“And they actually dodged our master’s traps, too! The
slippery floors, the illusory walls, the Corridor of True
Darkness, the death rays—not even I could come up with
some of that stuff, but they strode through all of it!”
Veldora and Ramiris gritted their teeth as they described
it.
The floors between sixty-one and seventy were Veldora’s
to decorate as he saw fit. His traps did take some victims,
yes, but unless they died instantly, the paladins could
readily heal them back to shape. Between that and their
Resurrection Bracelets, as they put it, the team never really
acted like they were in danger.
And here I thought those
,floors were too tough. With a
team ranked A or above, as long as the whole party didn’t
die at once, they could always bounce back. Something told
me we’d need to recalibrate the difficulty level a little.
“But my Elemental Colossus put in a real good fight!”
said Ramiris. “He wiped out all the challengers, even…”
Wow. If he can wipe out a team of paladins, that’s
nothing to sniff at. But hell, his sheer weight alone was a
threat. He was impervious to swords or magic, he moved
like a jackrabbit, and his weight had to be measured in
tons. He’d be anyone’s nightmare.
So why was Ramiris all despondent?
“Well, it appears that seeing the paladins struggle
against that boss frustrated Lady Hinata quite a bit,”
Mjöllmile said with a grin. “At one point, Sir Fritz, one of
the paladin commanders in the party, said to his
companions ‘Why, I’m not even sure Lady Hinata herself
could conquer this foe.’”
Hmm. Yes, if Hinata was there—an angered Hinata—not
even an Elemental Colossus could stop her. In fact…
“So, uh, how far did Hinata get…?”
“Y-yes, um…”
“That’s the problem!”
It really shocked me. In the space of a single day, Hinata
made it all the way down to the ninety-fifth floor. Even if we
spotted her at Floor 61, that’s an insane amount of speed.
She made quick work of the Elemental Colossus,
stopping it in its tracks and using Disintegration to
completely destroy it. Before much longer, she was at Floor
80, beating the boss there with pretty much a single blow.
“My apprentice Zegion’s in pupal form at the moment, so
he was in no shape to get moving,” Veldora explained.
“Apito woke up first, but she couldn’t keep up with that
girl’s speed, so she got whipped.”
“Yeah, that was quite a fight! Being a queen wasp,
Apito’s agility puts her at the top of the monster kingdom.
And she was trying her hardest to land a blow on that
Hinata lady, but she fended off every single one,” said
Ramiris.
Mmm. Yeah, if it’s Hinata involved, I could kinda see
that. She’s a strong one. How I even managed to beat her
was still a mystery to me.
“And then she kept on going! Floors 81 through 89 are
each ruled by one of Kumara’s followers, but she knocked
them out, one by one.”
“Right, and Kumara’s still too young, so I let Beretta
serve as the boss of Floor 90, but Hinata beat him!”
“Ah… It looked to me like Beretta had gotten stronger,
but I guess he tangoed with the wrong lady,” I said.
“Mm-hmm. It’s incredible,” replied Ramiris. “I can’t
believe people don’t call Hinata a Hero.”
And with that, Hinata called it a day and settled down in
her elegant suite on the ninety-fifth floor.
She had spent yesterday conquering Floors 96 to 99, the
“dragon floors” crafted by Milim that were supposed to be
the toughest we had to offer.
“The Raging Earth floor, you know—the earthquakes are
one thing, but the gravity traps are murder on you,”
continued Ramiris. “It’s about five times normal gravity in
there, so you’d think she’d have trouble moving around,
but…”
But neither lightning from the heavens, nor bone-chilling
cold, nor searing heat seemed to work against Hinata.
“So then it was finally time for my appearance.”
“Whoa, really, Veldora? You fought her?”
“I did. I take all comers! As the last boss, I will flee from
no challenger!”
“…And what happened?”
This was Veldora—of course he wouldn’t run. But I
needed to know the results. Veldora was stronger than me,
so I couldn’t imagine that he lost—but the question was
how Hinata decided to approach this.
“Oh, I won, of course. But she was rather strong, I will
admit. Her sword skills reminded me a tad of the Hero who
banished me, but her fighting style was quite the opposite.”
Hohh?
Whether Veldora’s victory was a foregone conclusion or
not, I was kind of sad I missed the fight. I really wish
someone thought to record it…
Understood. Unfortunately, all battle records appear to
have been deleted.
Yeah… But damn. I can’t believe how stupid I am for
missing an epic event like that.
“I tell you, Sir Rimuru, I could hardly believe my own
eyes! Ah, Lady Hinata was poetry in motion!”
Oh, Mjöllmile saw it, too? I am so jealous.
“Yeah, I have to hand it to Hinata… People argue over
who is better—am I or is she? But honestly, every time the
question comes up, my stomach starts to hurt.”
“Ah-ha-ha-ha! Modest as always, eh, Sir Masayuki?”
Mollie, please. That’s not modesty at all. It’s the cold,
hard truth.
“Hee-hee-hee! Oh, no need to joke about that,
Mjöllmile.” The smile on Masayuki’s face looked taut and
thin as he talked his way out of the question.
Mjöllmile didn’t get the message. “Ah yes, indeed. I am
sure that when it comes to battle, there is never any joking
around with you! Why, if you ever had the chance to wage
battle against Sir Veldora, I’m sure the results would be
beyond comprehension. I’d love to have a front-row seat for
that!”
It’s funny. Mjöllmile was usually such a compassionate,
empathetic man. But with Masayuki, he just didn’t know
when to quit. Please, just stop. The kid looks like he’s about
to have a heart attack!
“Oh, you think so? Would you like to have a bit of a
sparring match, Masayuki?”
“A bit of a sparring match” would kill him.
“Now, now, now… Yes, Masayuki’s a champion, but he
uses his brain to fight more, you know? If we ever fought, I
think I’d have a slight edge—but with your outlandish
strength, Veldora, I don’t think he’d ever live up to you.”
“I see, I see! Yes, I thought as much as myself. You
always were a fine judge of character, Rimuru! Kwaaah-ha-
ha-ha!!”
Whew. That oughtta do it. Praise him, and it immediately
lifts his spirits.
“Anyway, back to the topic?”
For now, I needed to hear Veldora’s story to the end. I
glanced at him, and he nodded back.
“Yes. You see, the Hero who sealed me away never made
a single wasteful motion in her attacks. By comparison, that
woman Hinata seemed to take a more varied approach,
searching for something that could work against me. They
were both coolheaded as fighters, never exposing
themselves, but Hinata’s style seemed full of needless
strikes and movements to me.”
As he described it, Hinata executed a wide range of
attacks—every kind of magic, amulet, and artifact she could
think of; she deployed them all. Simple physical attacks
don’t work on Veldora, so I imagine she was experimenting
to see what, if anything, would. But pretty much nothing
she threw at him had any effect.
“That final attack of hers was a fine one, though. It even
damaged me, albeit a very small, tiny amount. It reminded
me of the Hero’s Absolute Severance skill, to some extent.”
He was talking about Meltslash, Hinata’s ace in the hole
and a finishing move that took advantage of her sword
Moonlight. But not even that fazed him?
“Do you think she could be a threat if she used the right
tactics?”
Ramiris thought about this for a moment. “Hmmm, I
think she’s stronger than Clayman or the other, lesser
demon lords, that’s for sure. Even the Octagram’s current
members might have a hard time with her if they let their
guard down. But my master here’s in a world of his own—”
“Kwah-ha-ha-ha! Exactly! If she wants to fight even with
me, she’ll need at least ten times the energy!”
Oh…
So not even Hinata was a good match for Veldora? I
really wish I could’ve been there to study that battle. If I
saved my memory of it, it could’ve been a great reference
in the future. But there was nothing I could do now.
Leaving the past where it belonged, I steered us back to
the original topic.
“All right. So in essence, the second half of the labyrinth
failed to function properly against the paladins and Hinata?
But the bosses get resurrected, right?”
“Yeah, but Adalmann is weaker than Bovix, y’know? And
he helps me with research and stuff—I think he’s a real
talent, but I don’t think he’s the best person for the Floor
60 boss. Also…” Ramiris began to visibly shake. “My—my
masterpiece, the Elemental Colossus…
,It’s broken…and it
won’t go back to normal!!”
Then she broke down in tears. Huh? Wasn’t he a boss?
“Did he not have the bracelet on?”
“No, he did,” came the downhearted reply. “But he won’t
resurrect. He didn’t back when you broke him apart,
either.”
Apparently, golems that occur naturally can be
resurrected in the Dungeon, but the types Ramiris built
don’t. That gave me an idea.
“Maybe it’s because they don’t have a soul. Beretta
resurrected just fine, so maybe your labyrinth treats the
Elemental Colossus like any other item?”
“…What?”
“Hmm, that seems likely to me,” agreed Veldora. “Your
authority fails to extend to him, Ramiris, because he’s not
counted as a potential target.”
It sounded right to me. Which means that even if I
rebuilt it, it might just get broken down again. That wasn’t
going to happen too often, given its strength, but we should
really address that.
And before that:
“That takes a lot of time to build, doesn’t it?”
“It does! So right now, Floor 70 doesn’t have any boss at
all…”
I knew it.
“Yes, and down on Floor 80, Zegion will likely be
sleeping for a while to come. Apito has grown stronger
herself, but she has far too little real-battle experience. I
think she needs some training before we can have her
serve as a boss.”
It turned out Apito was already receiving some remedial
battle training. I wasn’t quite sure this was what I put her
in the labyrinth for, but she was gung ho about it, so I saw
no harm in letting her. Hinata was her teacher, by the way;
they asked her to help out in exchange for another chance
at fighting Veldora. Hinata was already assisting with our
kids, so giving Apito some battle instruction probably
wasn’t much more of a stretch.
That left Kumara. The Kumara minions running things
from Floors 81 to 89 were, in essence, magic-born
manifestations of Kumara’s own nine tails, one per floor.
Each had their own free will, evolving and learning by
themselves, but detaching them from her own body like
that greatly reduced Kumara’s own magicule stores. Thus,
they decided Kumara would join with Alice, Chloe, and the
rest and study under Hinata.
…All of this was decided yesterday.
“Okay, so we have no real bosses from Floors 60 to 90
right now?”
“That’s right!”
“Indeed. And that is why we have a problem!”
Ramiris and Veldora were sneering at me for some
reason.
“Good heavens…”
“Boy, talk about bad timing, huh?”
Mjöllmile and Masayuki were just as surprised to hear
about this. I thought things were pretty chill with the
labyrinth by this point, but I guess I was wrong.
“…All right. I think I understand the situation.”
I heaved a resigned sigh.
So now I had a stack of problems to deal with at once, but
at least we knew exactly what needed to be addressed from
Floor 51 on down. Plus, the traps I laid out were still in fine
shape.
“I suppose it’ll only be a matter of time before someone
slays the tempest serpent…but there’s no need to panic!”
“Ah, that’s the confident Rimuru I know. You have a
plan?”
“Hee-hee! I thought so. I knew there was nothing to
worry about with you around!”
The anxiety seemed to vanish from Veldora’s and
Ramiris’s faces. It was very self-serving of them, but I
nodded back and explained my thoughts.
“Right. Like I said before, my traps begin to get serious
from Floor 41 downward. Those are bound to trip them
up.”
“Ah, how reassuring to hear!”
“Hmm? I suppose so, yes.”
“And what kind of traps are these, Rimuru?”
Oh, is that what you ask? Better sit down for this.
“Well, the coups de grâce are the slimes on Floor 49.
Once you make it past a certain hallway, you’re cut off from
the rest of the floor and confronted with a huge pile of
slimes. Bad ones, let me add.”
This swarm of slimes would merge together to form truly
gigantic slimes, almost ten feet in diameter. The escape
routes in front of and behind it were cut off, effectively
stranding the poor victims. Physical attacks—slices, blows,
heavy impacts—didn’t work on it, and in a closed corridor,
not much magic was safe to use. Anything that exploded
was likely to blow up in your face, so that was off the table.
These slimes didn’t have much attack force, no, but
they’ll maneuver to cover you from both sides, the classic
pincer strategy. If you can picture edging closer and closer
to the wall behind you as one of them advances, you can
probably see how much of a threat they could be.
“Kwah-ha-ha-ha! Victory is ours!!”
“Yeah! It’s in the bag for us now!”
“Not so fast, you two. I didn’t stop there.”
I’m glad my initial salvo was enough to make them
cheerlead for me, but there were a bunch of other traps.
Prepare to quiver in fear as I break them down:
Slime Pool: What at first glance looks like a bouncy,
rubbery corridor is actually a slime—one that opens
into a soupy grave halfway down!
Slime Rain: A storm of fist-size slimes descends
upon you, each one small enough to work their way
into your clothing and armor. Watch for acid burns!
Slime Doll: Looks like a monster at first, but it
tirelessly takes all your attacks, gradually
exhausting you. Even worse, each attack you try on
it exposes your weapon to corrosive acid. Try not to
let your equipment get destroyed!
And so forth. I had other ideas, but for this set of floors, I
wanted the focus to be on explorer harassment. Breaking
their weapons, in particular, could make it impossible for
them to fight any longer. It’s the perfect way to buy us
time.
“Brilliant. Truly, a brilliant selection of traps. So even if
we don’t defeat our enemies with these traps, we win as
long as we can leave them damaged?”
“That’s right, Veldora.”
“Hmmm… And breaking their weapons is a good way to
chase off the stronger contenders. I didn’t think about
that.”
“Right. If you can beat them, it’s fine, but now they’re
gonna have to think about what if they can’t. It oughtta buy
us some time.”
For now, these traps wouldn’t do much more than slow
the challengers down. That was a shame, but we needed
that time to come up with more permanent solutions.
“So what do you intend to do with the time you buy?”
Veldora asked.
Better give a serious response to that. “It’s important we
don’t forget that our labyrinth isn’t your normal, run-of-the-
mill labyrinth. This is the Advanced Dungeon, a newer,
evolved type, and it’s meant to keep evolving and growing
more advanced.”
“…!”
“Yes, of course.”
“So we just need to make adjustments so the Dungeon
can handle things better next time. First off… Adalmann.
I’ll figure something out with him. I wanted to change up
the atmosphere in his boss room anyway, Ramiris, so I’ll
need your help.”
“Sure thing!”
Adalmann had made it up to the rank of cardinal in his
life; I think his job was officially high priest or something.
In a party, he’d be your back-row support type. Leaving him
to serve as a boss solo was a mistake; he needed to be
paired up with some kind of front-row partner. I had some
other thoughts, as well, so Ramiris and I decided to visit
Adalmann later on.
Next came the Floor 70 boss.
“We’ll just have to make another Elemental Colossus,” I
said. “And the perfect person for the job’s just come back.”
I could get the needed materials, so let’s take that
approach. But it wouldn’t be any fun to just build the same
thing again.
“The perfect person?” Ramiris asked.
I nodded at her. “Yeah, Kaijin is back. He knows a lot
about spirit engineering, so I think he’ll happily take the
job. Plus, I think this’ll help with the experiment I was
conducting earlier. I’ll show him my research results, so I
think you can expect an even stronger colossus than
before.”
“…Really? Oh, great!”
We couldn’t produce immediate results for her, but with
Kaijin on the team, we’d be stronger than ever. It wouldn’t
be ready immediately, but it’d definitely be a threat for the
next set of challengers who made it down there.
“So for Floors 80 and below…”
“I think that will work itself
,out over time. Once Zegion
wakes up, your garden-variety challenger will have no
chance, let me tell you. And the dragons Milim got should
evolve for us once they spend some more time in the
labyrinth.”
Kumara was a growing creature as well. No need to
hurry things along. The question was just how much time
we could buy for ourselves.
“Okay. So that’ll be our basic plan. Now we need more
time, and I don’t think my traps are gonna be enough. So
there’s something I wanted to test out, and Veldora…
Ramiris… I need your help.”
“But of course.”
“Sure thing!”
They both affably nodded. I returned the nod, then
looked at Masayuki.
“Masayuki, I’d like you to continue delving into the
Dungeon. But instead of going past Floor 41, it might be
best to focus on completing the Ogre Series first.”
“Very true. Sir Masayuki’s activities in the Dungeon are
always good advertising for us, and I don’t see much need
for him to hurry.”
“So I should let someone else get past Floor 40 first,
then?”
“Yeah. Also, I think you should maybe stay away from us
for a little while. I don’t want you getting caught up in our
plans.”
“Are you scheming something again?”
Masayuki leered at me. Well, that’s mean. He’s acting
like I’m always hatching some kind of nefarious new caper.
“Well, let me keep that under my hat for now. But we’ll
handle things on our end, so Mjöllmile and Masayuki, I’d
like you to keep things going as normal.”
“Very well, Sir Rimuru!”
“All right. I’ll give the news to my party.”
Good, then. Now to see how long my traps can hold out.
“Okay, if there’s nothing else, let’s—”
“Oh, one moment. I did want to discuss something…”
Just as I was about adjourn the meeting, Mjöllmile
stopped me. I guess he had other business to address.
“What is it?”
“Well…”
What Mjöllmile had to say threw me a bit.
“Lady Hinata was asking me about her reward money for
conquering the labyrinth floors…”
“Huh?” I reflexively replied. Those prizes, awarded for
clearing every tenth floor, were meant to attract the
nobility’s attention. What’d Hinata want with them? I mean,
she did earn them, but…
“She did not officially make it down to the bottom during
normal operation, no, but as she explained it to me, if she
played by the rules, didn’t she deserve to be paid?”
Mjöllmile looked concerned.
Okay, Hinata. Yes, you’re technically right. But weren’t
we kind of in this together? It was a test for us, too, and to
them it was on-the-field battle training. I didn’t see how
money had to be involved.
“No. Turn her down for me.”
“Are you sure, Sir Rimuru? If we do, she may decide to
stage a more serious challenge in the Dungeon, wouldn’t
she?”
“It’s fine. Just remind her that people will learn she lost
against the labyrinth master, and the word’ll spread like
wildfire.”
“Kwah-ha-ha-ha! It is impossible for me to lose!!”
Nice. I knew he’d pitch in at a time like this. Plus, if she
really did stage another attempt, we could leverage that in
our advertising.
“W-well, all right. But if possible, I’d like you to break
the news to her, Sir Rimuru—”
“What? No way.”
Yeah. No. I didn’t want her hating me. It’d suck if she
thought I was being a tightwad. Better to leave this role to
someone like Mjöllmile, with the firm, resolved attitude I
needed.
“B-but if I may, riling Lady Hinata’s anger honestly
scares me a little…”
“Thanks a bunch, Mollie!!”
I think he was about to say something, but I cut him off.
Sorry. I’m just not into doing that stuff. A pretty girl like
her, you know, I’d like us to stay friends. Besides,
Mjöllmile’s got a mafioso face and isn’t afraid of anyone; he
thinks of everything in terms of profit and loss, so I’m sure
he’d have no problem saying no.
I’m also sure that I just imagined it when I thought I
heard him sadly mutter “Perhaps I’ll use my pocket money,
then…” under his breath.
That wrapped up our agenda. Leaving the now-grieving
Mjöllmile to himself, I went on with my business.
I told Veldora and Ramiris our meeting time tomorrow.
There was some prep I’d need to wrap up before then, but
before that, I had one errand to attend to. Shion was on
standby outside my chamber, so I took her along with me to
visit Shuna.
Shuna was overseeing dinner preparations when we saw
her, giving out instructions to her staff. There were more
people in the kitchen now, the air alive with conversation
between an assortment of species. The skill Shuna
demonstrated by organizing them all showed her strength
as a leader. I hated to interrupt her for my personal
business, but we were battling against time here, so she’d
have to forgive me.
“Hey, Shuna. Got a moment?”
“Oh, Sir Rimuru! By all means, tell me what you need.”
Shuna ran up to me when I called out to her. In this noisy
kitchen, everyone was always kind enough to let me sample
their dishes when I stopped by now and then. I tried to
offer a quick comment for everything I tasted, but I was in
a rush, so our impromptu tasting had to wait.
“Sorry, guys, but I need Shuna’s help with something
today. I’ll be able to take my time in here next time, okay?”
“Certainly!”
“Stop by whenever.”
“Wait’ll you see what we’ve been working on now!”
The enthusiasm was palpable. I guess me complimenting
someone on their food was a kind of status symbol around
here. Next time oughtta be real fun.
“Okay, Gobichi, can you run things for a while?”
“Yes, Lady Shuna! Ready and able!”
Gobichi was second only to Shuna in cookery by now. He
was the head chef whenever Shuna was gone, so we were
in good hands.
“Right, see you later,” I said, waving at the disappointed
kitchen staff.
We were on our way to Floor 60, Adalmann’s lair.
“Oh, thanks for that sandwich, by the way. It was good.”
Shuna smiled as we walked along. “I’m so glad you liked
it.”
“Allow me to make a box lunch for you next time, Sir
Rimuru!” Shion was quick to volunteer.
I considered my options before replying. “Yeah, you’re
certainly improving by leaps and bounds. Could you maybe
work with Shuna on one sometime?”
I thought I was safe trusting Shion by this point, but a
little insurance never hurt. Shuna’s presence should keep
Shion from going crazy in the kitchen.
“Perhaps tomorrow then, Lady Shuna?!”
“Hee-hee! All right, Shion. Let’s begin with something
simple first.”
It was a pleasant exchange. Their musical performance
had been in perfect sync, too, actually. I’m glad they were
getting along.
So we chatted along those lines as we reached the
sixtieth floor.
“Adalmann, I’m coming in.”
“Ah, it’s you, Sir Rimuru! Truly, recent events have filled
me with anguish. I am fully prepared to accept any
punishment you deem fit for my inferior self—”
He immediately fell to his knees when I said his name.
His penchant for exaggeration was as healthy as always,
but I was used to it by now.
“Nah, as far as that goes, it’s our fault for misreading
this. You’re not a good fit for combat against paladins. I
don’t think you could’ve avoided that defeat.”
“…No, even now, I lament just how spiritless I was in
battle. Losing to such inexperienced fighters… I
approached the battle as if I were still a wight king, but I
lost after my magic failed to trigger…”
Right now, Adalmann was nothing more than a powerless
wight. A wight with some pretty advanced magic
knowledge and battle experience, sure, but species-wise,
he was just a low-level monster. There wasn’t much magic
he could fully harness, and the only creatures he could
summon were equally low-level undead. Monsters had the
capacity to evolve via the magicules in the labyrinth, but
that took time. Adalmann’s minions wouldn’t be evolving
for a while to come—but what I was about to do would help
him power up much more quickly.
“One of the most important things you can do is know
the extent of your powers. Do you mind if I ask you a
question?”
“Yes! Anything.”
“How much holy magic can you wield at the moment?”
Holy magic was, in essence, force stemming
,from faith.
You didn’t need to gather up magicules from the
atmosphere, and it wasn’t affected by the magic strength
within you. If you had the right knowledge and enough
spell-casting time, you could weave powerful magic without
exerting a great deal of energy.
What it did require, though, was a pact forged with a
god. A god, for the purposes of this kind of magic, was an
existence who could wield the spiritual particles that were
the building blocks for magicules. It wasn’t dependent on
the caster believing in this or that god, or some other
divine concept in this world—a god was just anyone who
could directly interact with spiritual particles.
In Luminism, for example, Luminus was a god for this
reason. Adalmann was a devout Luminist, and becoming a
monster hadn’t shaken his faith at all; that’s why he could
cast Disintegration as a wight king, I suppose. Now,
however, he was worshipping me as a god instead of
Luminus, and we couldn’t forge a pact of faith with each
other. I figured holy magic was thus out of the question,
maybe.
“These days, not very much, I am afraid. Even lower-
ranked magic is inaccessible to me.”
I thought so. Holy magic, in essence, worked the same
way as spirit magic. A pact was involved, and you were
borrowing force from a higher power to cast your spells.
Not even Hinata could cast holy magic without borrowing
Luminus’s powers. If the human race didn’t align itself with
a god like Luminus, they’d lose access to one of the most
effective ways to handle monsters.
It’d be ironic if it weren’t so scary to think about. If
Luminus’s whims had driven her to go in a different
direction, the world might’ve wound up far more chaotic
than it already was.
“All right. So let me ask you, Shuna: How much holy
magic can you use? And what’s your faith pointed at?”
“In my case, it is not exactly holy magic. It is an
imitation, powered by my unique skill Parser, and it works
surprisingly well.”
Ah, I see. An imitation? I did leave her to analyze the
barrier over our town, come to think of it. Maybe that let
her copy a subset of holy magic as a side effect.
And in addition to that:
“My faith is in you, Sir Rimuru, and there’s no doubting
the power that brings me. That’s why I think I might be
able to do this.” Shuna gave me a somewhat bashful smile.
“…Huh? But when you fought me, didn’t you say that
even monsters could use holy magic…?”
“I was bluffing,” Shuna replied, still smiling. “It was a
bluff I was quite sure of, but you wound up proving it for
me, Sir Rimuru.”
Adalmann gave us a quizzical look. It was surprising how
much variety there was to his facial expressions, being a
skeleton and all. But regardless.
The most important element to executing holy magic was
faith. Faith was intertwined with connections in the soul,
and it might be that Shuna inadvertently grasped this at
the deepest level. If that was the case, I just needed to
present my theory and have Adalmann learn it. He should
know how it feels, so I didn’t think it’d be that hard.
“Now, I’d like both of you to accept for me what I’ll call
the secret skills of faith and favor. I just learned them from
Luminus not long ago, and it’s strictly classified
information, so keep that in mind.”
As a former high priest, I figured Adalmann could
rediscover holy magic once he could connect with me. Even
now, when his magicule count was nothing like it used to
be, holy magic ought to make him a lot more useful in a
fight.
“The secret skills of faith and favor…?”
“Ah, ahhhh… Now I too shall bask in the powers of the
truly divine…” He was even more stifling than usual today,
but I put up with it.
“Um, Sir Rimuru, do you mind if I ask a question?”
I hadn’t thought about it until now, but for the first time
in a while, I was being carried by Shion—in slime form, of
course. I didn’t want that to stop—it was comfortable, after
all. This holy-magic talk would fly straight over her head, I
was sure, but I had to be confident she could keep it secret.
“Don’t tell anyone, all right?” I said to her.
“Of course!” came the energetic reply. I was happy
enough with that, so I went over the basics of my plan with
Shuna.
“I see… So I can learn holy magic as well if I can
‘believe’ in you?”
“Right. I think so. It’s something you can research in
your free time anyway. Maybe talk about it with Adalmann
and stuff.”
“All right. I look forward to seeing how much of it I can
learn.”
Shuna was picking this up fast. With her Parser skill,
maybe learning Disintegration wasn’t a pipe dream, even.
As for Adalmann:
“Oh, ohh, ohhhhhh!! I am swelling, overflowing with
power!!”
He was pretty excited.
“Holy Cannon!!”
With a red light sparking up from deep within his eye
sockets, Adalmann pointed a hand forward and screamed.
A concentrated ball of energy flew out from his palm—a
bolt of Holy Cannon, a full-fledged holy spell. A powerful
one, too, and one he had generated all by himself.
“Ohh, Sir Rimuru, my god…”
He prostrated himself before me in worship. I wish he
wouldn’t. It kind of made my spine prickle.
“Great, um, that worked, huh? Now keep practicing so
you can start casting some higher-level magic. And if
something comes up, you can always turn to Shuna for
advice!”
I was clearly trying to hurry things along. Shuna,
understanding my intentions, lightly nodded.
“…Ah. So you want me to be his adviser since you dislike
dealing with him yourself?”
I heard that question loud and clear, but pretending I
didn’t was probably the best move here. If she could just
assume I’m an insensitive clod who doesn’t understand
anything for myself, that’d be great.
“I promise I will live up to your lofty expectations, Sir
Rimuru!!” Adalmann, meanwhile, was energized like never
before.
I decided now was a good time to give him another
important piece of advice. “Now, as a wight, if you cast a
holy spell, doesn’t that damage you?”
There were two types of holy magic—one neutral type
that worked with spiritual particles, and another of the
“holy” type that canceled out magicules. Holy Cannon was
the latter type, and as a monster, I figured that would cause
him damage.
“Ha-ha-ha! A little pain is nothing that would faze me—”
Ah. Adalmann’s just soldiering through it. But that
doesn’t really solve the problem. I could tap Beretta’s
Reverser unique skill to flip the holy attribute around to
demonic…but that’s another future research topic.
For the time being:
“Then how about this, Adalmann?” Still enveloped in
Shion’s chest, I sent a beam of light into the air.
“Ohhh!!”
“I removed the holy attribute and powered it up a bit.
It’s called Holy Ray, and it’s my own creation.”
Holy Ray is a neutral attack, neither holy nor demonic in
nature. As long as you didn’t screw it up, it would never
damage the caster. However, it was a trickier spell to cast—
in other words, it required the user to have more “faith” in
me…
It was meant for a single target, and in terms of
spontaneous force, it was better than my Megiddo spell. It
launched quickly and emitted a bright light, but it was
actually a long string of concentrated, spinning spiritual
particles. As a piercing attack, it wasn’t as powerful as
Disintegration, but took much less time to cast.
“Wonderful. Truly a wonderful spell!!”
Adalmann was beside himself with joy. If he could master
this spell, it might help him get used to manipulating
spiritual particles in general. Then he’d be able to launch
bigger beams with tons more lethality. This was one of the
spells Raphael developed based on my requests, and for
Adalmann at the moment, this was the most ideal weapon I
could give him.
“I’ll be glad to discuss magic with you at any time, so
don’t be afraid to contact me.”
Shuna had already kindly accepted my request. That
was, to say the least, a relief.
“All right. Keep up your training, then, and try your best
to learn holy magic that won’t damage you.”
I wanted that to be a
,focus. It would complicate fighting
otherwise.
Raising a hand to quiet down the jubilant Adalmann, I
then tackled our next problem.
“So right now, you don’t have too many ways to attack.
We can help you gradually build up an arsenal, but before
that, there’s something quick we can do.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, you’re more of a back-row fighter by nature,
right?”
“I would say my role more often was to provide rear
support, yes. When I was a wight king, I’d often use
summoning magic to bring forth an army of undead,
overwhelming foes with my sheer numbers.”
I’m sure he did. There was no rule that said a floor
guardian had to fight solo, so all we had to do was bring on
someone to take up the front row for him.
“Right? So I think it was a mistake for me to pit you
against parties of people.”
“Yes, I do have a variety of martial arts at my disposal,
but with this body of bones, it’s all rather incompatible…”
No, that’s not the issue. He must’ve mistakenly thought I
was scolding him. Punches and kicks weren’t going to solve
anything.
“Nah, nah, don’t worry about that. If you’re fighting a
single person, then fine, but if it’s more than one, call for
some friends of your own. You had one, didn’t you? I think
his name was…”
“Oh, you mean my friend Alberto?”
“Yeah, right, Alberto. I guess he’s a skeleton right now,
but he used to be an imperial acolyte, didn’t he? Good
enough with a sword to trouble Hakuro, even. That’s the
kind of strength you need. And if he’s got the right
equipment, he can still cut it in a fight today, right?”
“Yes, with his talents, I am sure he can live up to your
expectations, Sir Rimuru.”
I could sense the pride in Adalmann’s voice. Now I was
getting more confident about the idea I had.
“Okay, can you give him this equipment for me later?”
I produced a set of gear from my Stomach and laid it out
on the floor. Previously, I had heard Alberto was capable of
fighting without a shield, so I figured this was the best set
for him:
Cursed Sword: A one-handed, medium-length sword
that absorbs life force from its surroundings—
including the wielder, making it a failure as a
weapon.
Cursed Mail: Produces a constantly deployed barrier
with high magical resistance and defense—but also
continually saps the wearer’s life force.
These two items were collaborations between Kurobe
and Garm, both trying to extract as many features from
them as possible. They were planning to create a whole
series, but they shelved it once they realized no living
being could use them. Garm, in particular, actually
collapsed while crafting them; things were touch and go for
a little while. We could laugh about that now, but given that
backstory, we were all a bit loath to just throw these things
away.
Besides, they both worked really great. Unique-caliber
gear, you could even call them. But since monsters count as
living creatures, too, we figured they were completely
unusable…and now, as I realized, that’s no issue at all with
the undead.
“What do you think? You don’t feel sick or anything
holding them, do you?”
“I feel nothing in particular. We are already dead, after
all.”
Adalmann checked them himself to be sure. The moment
he unsheathed the sword, Shuna and Shion began to wince
—that life-absorb feature must’ve been working. Given how
Adalmann wasn’t fazed at all, undead must’ve been
impervious to it.
“Great. I think you’ll be okay, then.”
Back in its sheath, the sword no longer sapped our
energy—but that alone could make it pretty decent for
attacking.
“Oh, and there’s this, too.”
It was a surcoat, an outer garment, made of my Sticky
Steel Thread—a superior piece, resistant to heat and cold
and also resilient against bladed weapons. These were
circulating around as part of the Tempest-made goods we
had available, but we charged an arm and a leg for them.
“Very well. I will be sure Alberto receives these. He will
be overjoyed, I promise you!”
Great. With Alberto fighting for him, Adalmann would
have a lot more options in battle now.
Oops. Just remembered.
“And, Adalmann, I want you to have this.”
I took out a jet-black robe, like something a priest from
some dark, sinister cult would wear. It looked kind of cool,
actually, not to mention gaudily decorated. It was, in fact,
one of the most impressive pieces of the whole Tempest
clothing collection—something worth at least a hundred
gold coins, or the equivalent of a luxury sports car. Even
royalty or nobility couldn’t shell out for this without due
consideration. Truly top of the line. And it performed well,
too—amazingly, even if it got ripped, it’d use Self-
Regeneration to fix itself up. That made it a magic item,
one with features you almost never saw.
“Oh—ohhhhh…”
Adalmann respectfully took it from me.
“I’d like you to put that on and greet any challengers you
see like you’re still a wight king. I think that’ll help create
more of a ‘floor guardian’ atmosphere with you, y’know?”
This was more a matter of taste than anything—my taste
—but still.
I had also asked Ramiris to help me renovate this floor.
We envisioned something like a throne room, with
Adalmann leading an army of undead like the king he was.
“I will gladly do that, Sir Rimuru. It happens to be one of
my talents.”
Nice. It seemed like I could rely on him.
“Okay. I’ll leave you be here, then. Also, if you have any
other talented knights you’d like to have serving you in
here, knock yourself out.”
“Understood, my lord. If I could check with you on one
thing…”
“Mmm? What is it?”
“Well, I would like to bring one of my pets here with me,
but could I ask for your permission?”
A pet? Hmm… Didn’t seem like an issue.
“Well, sure, if that’s all it is. You can use whatever pets
you want in battle, actually; just try not to have them
outnumber the parties attacking you.”
“Yes, my lord. I have been granted this land by my god,
and I promise you that I, Adalmann, will protect it with all
the ability I can muster!!”
Overreacting again. I let it slide. It wasn’t worth
commenting on.
“Okay. We’re gonna be renovating this space to look like
a throne room tonight, so feel free to choose whoever you
want to serve you. If you have any questions, ask Shuna or
Ramiris.”
“Yes, my lord!!”
“May the words of Sir Rimuru propel you forward!”
Shion had to butt in there. I really wish she didn’t—but
she seemed happy with herself, so I didn’t pursue it.
The next day, we all came together at the appointed hour.
“Hee-hee-hee… Adalmann’s floor is just perfect now!”
The moment she caught sight of me, Ramiris started
bragging. As she had reported, she completed the throne
room the previous evening.
“Thanks much. The rest, I think we can leave to
Adalmann.”
“Are you sure?”
“Welllll, he’ll perform better than he did yesterday
anyway. If he’s fighting an A ranker, he’s gonna have
trouble, but he’ll at least be able to expose his opponents’
skills for us.”
The longer Adalmann held out, the more serious his foes
would get. That’s where Raphael would step in, analyzing
the battle and figuring out how we should best respond—
valuable info we could leverage in the next floor.
Despite everything I said to Adalmann, it really wasn’t
any big deal if he lost. Besides, depending on the decisions
we made right now, both he and (for that matter) Bovix may
be idle for a long time to come. We needed to address every
facet of this.
So! Time to start implementing—
“What are you doing?! I heard all about it! My dragons
got pummeled?!”
Now that’s the last person I wanted to see—Milim,
storming into the conference room and looking absolutely
livid.
In her hand was Gobta, looking like a dirty old rag; he
was being dragged along, but it looked like he was still
breathing. I could hear him muttering “Heh-heh-heh… I did
it… I sure did… I finished it all!” over and over to himself,
too, so I guess he was conscious. Milim’s training must’ve
really done a number on him, but he didn’t
,look any
stronger to me—just kind of (okay, a lot more) beat up. Was
he all right?
Milim nodded at me, oblivious to my concern. “Ah yes!
Yes, Gobta performed brilliantly! I didn’t think he’d ever
beat Hell mode!”
She did look pretty satisfied. And judging by the praise
from Milim, Gobta must’ve performed a truly monumental
feat.
“In that case, it is time to teach him my Veldora-Style
Death Stance—”
“No it’s not! Gobta is my disciple!”
Veldora and Milim promptly began arguing, a completely
spent Gobta to the side of them. I really didn’t want to get
involved with that, so I’ll leave that choice up to Gobta.
Glad he’s home safe, at least. I was going to reward him
later.
Once I had his attention, I ordered Gobta to get some
rest. He promptly headed to a nearby nap room.
Did I mention Ranga?
“My—my master, I have returned…”
He was wobbly as he padded toward me, voice hoarse.
Gobta looked bad, and Ranga was about the same. Pretty
intense training, I guess. I reflexively gave him a pat on the
head; he squinted appreciatively.
“Good job. You can rest in my shadow now.”
He jumped right in the moment I said it.
By the way, once he had recovered enough, I asked
Gobta what they were up to. It turned out that his
“training” was nothing but on-the-field battle—back-to-back
fighting against monsters either at his level or slightly
above it. Once he and Ranga were in perfect sync with each
other, they moved on to a never-ending string of battles
against people like Carillon and Middray.
As Milim apparently put it to him: “No matter how hard
you try, you’re never gonna house more magicules within
your body. But don’t worry! If you can Unify with Ranga,
that immediately solves the problem—and once you learn
how to master the increase in power, you’ll be fine! So
leave the magicule surge to Ranga and just try to polish up
your senses!”
“So it was nothing but battle-sense training since then,”
he concluded with a smile. He had also learned the extra
skill Sage, which let him speed up his thoughts. I was
pretty impressed.
Having Milim back was a boon, actually. After leaving
Adalmann, I had been making the necessary preparations
all night, just barely wrapping everything up in time.
Promptly, I took out one of the items I had completed.
Veldora, Ramiris, and Milim each gave it curious stares as I
held it in my hand.
“Pay attention, everyone! I have a special item here,
something I’ve been developing for a little while.
Personally, I think it’s groundbreaking. It’ll help us solve
the problems we’re facing in the labyrinth, and it’ll also add
some more fun to all our lives.”
I gave all three one of their own. I didn’t expect Milim in
today, but I was planning to invite her over once I had
something practical to share, so hers was all set to go.
The idea for this came from the homunculus Archduke
Erald used earlier. I figured that having access to
temporary bodies would let you do some pretty neat stuff.
“What’s this?”
“Never seen this before. Do I eat it?”
“Hmm… To me, it looks like a vessel for the soul—or the
like.”
Milim, Ramiris, and Veldora seemed equally curious. No,
Ramiris, it wasn’t food. Did she think everything I brought
over for her was food? Oh, well.
Veldora was fairly close to the right answer. These items
were quasi-compartments for souls. When transferring your
consciousness to a homunculus, a corridor is established
between it and your soul using some magic. I had Analyzed
and Assessed the core components of that magic, revising
them for my own needs. This was what I gave to Treyni—a
vessel for her chaos core. I called it a pseudo-soul.
“Veldora’s almost got it. This device imitates a soul
vessel. I can’t provide a soul itself, so instead, I tried to
create a substitute that mimics one.”
“Hohh. Why did you do that?”
Veldora, maybe pleased he got it right, tried to sound as
intelligent as possible. There was no need for me to put on
airs; I could go ahead and just state my aims, but before
that, I wanted to surprise them a little. After all the effort I
spent on this, I thought I deserved a bit of fun.
“Hey, not so fast, not so fast. I’ll explain everything to
you, okay? But next up, I’ve also got this. Take it and try to
imagine a monster in your mind. Any one is fine.”
I then took out a set of black balls, each about the size of
a fist, and handed them to my audience.
Veldora gave it an odd look. “Hmm? Any type?”
“Yeah. Either an existing one or whatever crazy thing
comes to mind for you.”
“So a goblin or an orc? Or a horned hare, or an ogre
bear, or anything?”
“Hmm? Sure. But make sure it’s something you like. I
don’t want you to complain about your choice afterward.”
“All right. A monster, then? Do these create monsters
who you’ll repel labyrinth challengers with…?”
“Something like that.”
He was always supersharp with things like this.
Satisfied enough with my guidance, the three of them
picked up their black orbs and sank into contemplation.
These items were called master cores, and the magical core
of Charybdis came in handy with developing them. I had
that kept in isolation within my Stomach, but Raphael had
finally finished analyzing it. It was the core of a large
monster, as well as the root of its power; apparently, in the
transformation into demon lord, I had consumed all the
negative energy inside, so it was now an empty shell. That
made it perfect for housing a soul vessel…and now, here we
were.
After a few moments, the magicules in the air began to
interact with the master cores, creating monsters—the
exact ones each bearer imagined.
“Well? Pretty neat, huh? And like Veldora said, we can
use these monsters to engage parties in the labyrinth.
That’s what I gathered all of you here for.”
That wasn’t the only reason, but nobody was listening
anyway. They were all marveling at the monsters they
created.
Meanwhile, I was busy making my own monster—a
ghost, a transparent, disembodied soul floating in the air.
I’ll omit its stats, but one special skill it had was Cancel
Physical Attack—as a ghost, no physical attack worked on
it. It couldn’t attack physically, either, of course; magic was
its only offense.
Next up was Veldora. There was now a skeleton standing
next to him. It couldn’t cast magic, although it could learn
how later on—with the right evolution, it could also master
Battlewill.
Milim, meanwhile, had generated a bouncy, lustrous
blob. It had no limbs, its color a garish red that demanded
your attention. It was a slime.
Um…
“Why’d you make a slime? Are you picking on me?!”
“N-no, um, you asked me to go with something I liked.
What’s the issue?”
Now she was firing back at me. Ah well. She was clearly
happy, at least, her eyes all but shouting “Slime!” out loud.
I was wondering about the Day-Glo red, however.
Finally, we had Ramiris. What was this? A knight? Or a
suit of armor? Yes, it was a suit of living armor, to be exact
—full plate, but looking worn out for some reason. It was
still the largest out of the four monsters we made. Maybe
Ramiris’s hang-ups about her size drove her to imagine
something big. The fact that it was completely empty inside
was pretty appropriate for her.
Everyone peered closely at the monsters they just willed
to life. But the surprises were only beginning.
“All right, so listen. As Veldora pointed out, I’m thinking
about using the monsters we created to dispatch the
intruders inside our labyrinth.”
“Mm? Intruders…?”
“Yes. These monsters are the guardians of the labyrinth,
so anyone stepping inside has to be intruders, right?”
“Ah, I see.”
“Huh? What?”
“Mmm, indeed. Remember, Ramiris, we are running this
labyrinth. Calling them ‘challengers’ is rather strange, if
you think about it.”
“Yes… Now that you mention it, you’re right!”
“Yeah, I was thinking the same thing.”
Veldora’s stepping in to explain matters was convincing
enough for Ramiris. Milim, meanwhile, pretended she knew
,the entire time. I doubted she did at all, but I needed to
move things along.
“Right. So we’ll be taking on the intruders with these…
but do you think it’ll be possible at all?”
“Of course not. They are far too weak.”
“My armor looks pretty cool, but I’m not too optimistic,
no.”
“Rimuru, I’m disappointed in you! You know I’m too
smart a girl to expect anything from these.”
Heh-heh-heh. Just as I thought, they were spouting off
whatever popped into their minds. Why were Ramiris and
Milim acting so haughty with me? That set me off a bit, but
I needed to act my age here.
“Well, the story doesn’t end when you create them. The
real show begins now, so I’d like all of you to sit down and
relax, okay? Now, what I’d like you to do is point your
pseudo-souls at your monster and chant ‘Possess!’ out
loud.”
There were some incredulous looks, but they all settled
into their seats for me. We had some pretty comfy chairs in
this conference room; the cushioning was excellent.
Then, all at once:
“““Possess!”””
The moment we all said it together, the pseudo-souls in
our hands lit up as they were absorbed into the monsters,
fusing with the master cores inside them. This resulted in a
complete avatar core—and when it was done, my
consciousness blacked out.
In another moment, my view had changed. My Magic
Sense, something I had on at all times, immediately shrank
down its range, drastically affecting my vision. I had my
five simulated senses now, so it was still far better than my
first few days in this world, but the other three had never
experienced anything like that, so it must’ve been a bear to
deal with.
I looked around as I thought about this. In my hazy
vision, I could see a skeleton stretching out its legs, a slime
zooming around at surprising speed, and a suit of living
armor methodically toddling around like a classic wind-up
robot. All three of them had successfully “possessed” their
monster.
Even now, I could feel myself getting used to this. It felt
far more natural than anticipated—like it was my own body.
A body that was far less capable than my own, however, so
it was hard to move around. But once you figured out how
you moved, it got easier to predict how your body would
react to your will. You didn’t need long at all to move it
exactly as intended.
The same was true for the other three.
“““This is great!”””
After a few minutes of testing out their new bodies, they
all shouted in unison.
“Isn’t it? What do you think of my research, huh?”
“Amazing. Truly amazing, Rimuru!” Veldora cried.
“That’s classic Rimuru, isn’t it? No wonder I thought you
were such a great guy!” Ramiris agreed.
“I knew it all along,” said Milim. “I’ve always believed in
you!!”
They were hopelessly wrapped around my finger. But
hey, glad they’re happy. “Well, looks like we’ve got a
resounding success. And now that you’ve all jumped into
those monsters, I don’t think I need to explain what we
have to do, do I?”
“Heh-heh-heh…,” Veldora chuckled. “Such a silly
question. So instead of having the monsters do our bidding,
we take matters into our own hands? What a creative idea,
Rimuru.”
“Exactly!” I replied. “Although, I wish I could’ve tried
conquering the labyrinth in this form…”
“So this is what a video game is like? I’ve heard about
this!”
“What? Is that true, Veldora?!” said Milim.
“Master! So we’ll beat up the enemy like this, then? And
then we can make these bodies learn new things, too…?”
Ramiris jumped in.
Gotta hand it to Veldora. He immediately guessed what I
wanted to do. Yes, this was basically a pseudo-MMORPG—
although, there wasn’t anything too “massive” about our
party of four. Maybe just an MORPG, then? It doesn’t
matter. The key thing here, the concept, was that we could
now enjoy the very labyrinth we expended the effort to
build.
“Hee-hee-hee! Well put, Veldora. You can nearly read my
mind, I see. But don’t get the wrong idea yet. Yes, I
developed this with an eye toward playing the labyrinth like
a game, but we have other business first, don’t we?”
“Kwah-ha-ha-ha, we do! We need to use these bodies to
dispatch the challengers—I mean, the intruders causing us
problems, then?”
He got it, all right. Yes, I thought about using these
“avatars,” these monster bodies, to interfere with Green
Fury’s rapid advance. And like Ramiris said, I had thought
of several ways to enjoy these bodies—leveling them up to
evolve them, learning how to fight with the restricted skills
they had, and so on. Still, what I really wanted to do was go
have fun beating up monsters and challengers—I had no
idea I’d invent something so useful just to make that
happen.
“Of course, once everything was ready, I was just
thinking that we could enjoy conquering our own labyrinth
as well,” I said.
“Ah, right. We’ll be able to test out our work, huh?”
“Mm-hmm. And with these avatars, we can’t exercise our
full powers, right? So I thought it’d help us get another
perspective on problems in the labyrinth.”
“Yes… True. And the master of the labyrinth taking on
challengers himself—some people might see that as
unseemly. But copying my soul into a weaker beast like
this…”
“Right! This way, we can beat up intruders as regular old
labyrinth denizens, not as True Dragons or demon lords.”
“Now I get it! This sounds fun!!” Milim was certainly
convinced. Given the nearly infinite power she lobbed
around all the time, a much more inconvenient form
must’ve seemed novel to her. She looked really excited
about it.
“Well, shall we spring into action?”
“Yes, why not clean up the garbage before enjoying our
own game?” said Veldora.
“The time has come to fully stretch out my arms, I’d
say!” said Ramiris. “I can’t wait to test all forty-eight of my
finisher moves!”
“I’m not sure how any of this works, but this seems
kinda fun to me!” Milim cheered.
We all triumphantly stood up. Time to go down there, get
in Green Fury’s way, and ensure they couldn’t challenge
the bottom floors for a little while. How would we do that?
Well, I had a few other schemes in mind.
First, we needed to get used to our avatars. After that, the
next important thing was equipment. We all put on
Resurrection Bracelets with infinite charges, ensuring we
could die as much as we wanted—but that wasn’t enough.
Our avatars were freshly born and extremely low level.
Pushovers like us wouldn’t deter Green Fury, no matter
how well we surprised them. If we had some decent
equipment, though…
“Right, we’ll definitely want to get some equipment
together. Let’s go to Kurobe’s and have him craft some
weapons and armor!”
“Ah yes, indeed! I’m a mere skeleton as it is, after all.”
“Hee-hee! You fools! I’m a slime built for speed and
mobility now! I could work just fine in the labyrinth!”
“Um, I’m just a suit of armor… Can I put more armor on
over this?”
“Oh, we can figure something out. Let’s just head over.
And if you don’t need equipment, Milim, just stay here.”
“D-don’t give me that nonsense! I can hold my own as it
is, but I still need some gear!”
Talk about selfish. She should’ve just said so. I wanted
some equipment as well, so I prepared to undo the
Possession and leave.
“To go back, just picture the word separate in your mind.
That’ll bring you back.”
I gave them a quick demo, putting the avatar core in my
pocket as I taught them. These avatar cores had the
monster encoded in them, one per core, and they couldn’t
be shared between different people. These cores were a
second “self” for you, really, so I wanted to be sure people
took good care of them.
“With these,” I added, “you’ll be able to call on your
second form anytime you like.”
“Pretty neat item, definitely. We’ll need to think about
what to do with them while we’re busy Possessing.”
Veldora and Ramiris, back in their original bodies, stood
up from their chairs.
“Maybe fit it on our Bracelets so we don’t lose them?”
suggested Veldora.
“That’s a good idea. I think I’ll do
,that!” said Ramiris.
They both played around with the avatar cores in their
hands. I think I’ll do that with mine as well. But what about
Milim?
“Hey, Mili—”
“I’m gonna go like this!”
Before I could call for her, Milim—in slime form—was
digging her way into my pocket. “Okay, let’s go!” she
shouted, bossing me around and demonstrating her utter
lack of interest in listening to me. She must’ve really liked
that body. Pretty childlike of her…which, yeah, she is a
child. Calling a child childish wasn’t very constructive, so I
gave up on scolding her and got going.
We were at Kurobe’s workshop.
“You there, Kurobe?”
“Oh, Sir Rimuru? What brings you here today?”
Kurobe came right up when I asked for him. Seeing
Veldora and Ramiris with me surprised him.
“Well, we’re looking for some weapons,” I said as we
walked inside. I hadn’t been around for a while, but the
workshop definitely had more people now—monsters
included. It was scorching hot as usual. Temperature didn’t
affect me, so it was fine, but working in here must’ve been
grueling for the others.
“Looks like you’ve hired some more apprentices.”
“Yeah, luckily! They still need practice, but some of ’em
are pretty talented.”
Some of them looked up as they heard us talking in the
workshop. Once they saw who I was, they leaped to their
feet and bowed at me. Seeing all of them do that at once
startled me, but Kurobe was used to it.
“It’s not break time yet! Get back to work!”
His ornery shouting drove his staff to return to their
jobs. But I kind of understood their thought process. If
you’re sitting at your cube, and the CEO comes in out of
nowhere, you’d be nervous, too—especially if you were on
the bottom rung. And maybe it didn’t feel that way to me,
but I was the ruler of this nation. I hadn’t let it concern me
before now, but maybe I should have given more advance
warning as a rule.
Coming in casually like this might’ve just caused trouble
for everyone. Whenever a district manager or whatever
came to view our workplace in my old world, we’d always
spend the previous day cleaning up the whole office to
prepare. If it was the president, then no mistakes would be
tolerated. The higher up you went, the more it unnerved
people when you got all casual with them, I guess.
Still, I didn’t want every trip out to be filled with pomp
and circumstance. I hated to call Kurobe out of his busy
work schedule; better for me to just show up whenever he’s
free.
“Sorry I barged in without any warning. I think I’m
gonna make a regular habit of it for a little while, so no
need to get all tense, okay?”
Thus, I decided to address the staff. Maybe them being
too casual with me would be a problem, but there was no
need to be on pins and needles around me. I loved acting
like a boss, but I didn’t make a hobby out of
inconveniencing people. If the other person’s too nervous
to react to me, that bothered me, too. Gobta’s obliviousness
was just right. Just keep in mind the acronym TPO—time,
place, occasion—and it was easier to find the right
approach.
My advice seemed to relieve the staff a bit. Once I was
sure of that, I nodded and went into a room deeper inside
the workshop.
I wasn’t aware of this, by the way, but the apprentices
weren’t anxious just because I was a demon lord.
While I wasn’t paying attention, someone had held a
Tempest popularity contest, and apparently, I had been
voted into the top-three idols alongside Shuna and Shion. A
surprising result, they told me. Ramiris and Milim were in
the rankings as well, and while I won’t say exactly where, I
can tell you that Milim and I were way ahead of Ramiris.
I wasn’t sure whether to whine about it or marvel at how
my town’s grown. Either way, hearing about it later made
me roll my eyes.
“So what kind of stuff d’you need?”
In his personal chamber, Kurobe got straight down to
business.
“Well…”
We all went over the hopes we had.
“I’m intending to have Garm build the armor, so I think
it’d be neat if you could collaborate again.”
“Yeahhh, true. All right. Let’s go bother Garm about it.”
So as we talked, we decided to take Kurobe over to
Garm’s workshop. I wound up causing a similar commotion
over there, but I’ll skip describing it.
“Equipment for monsters?! Wow. You always have the
craziest projects for me, don’t you?”
As Garm groused about this, the four of us all Possessed
our avatars to demonstrate for him.
“All right. We’ll make you exactly what you want—no,
even better!”
“Yes, we’re on the case. I love a nice, creative project
like this, and I’ll try to craft some stuff that’d never work on
a human!”
Kurobe and Garm both readily agreed to the project. And
really, I couldn’t wait to see what they came up with.
They said the work would be done in several days, so in
the meantime, we trained ourselves to get more used to our
avatars. Nothing too complex—fighting monsters in the
labyrinth’s upper levels, attacking obvious newbie
adventurers.
Over the past few days, we had grown adept at dividing
up our roles. Reaching that point, though, was a slog. At
first, we even lost to beginner parties up top.
We’d also get wiped out by traps, which would probably
be funny to us later but definitely wasn’t at the time, and
do other stupid things. We tried using magic items to keep
traps from deploying and stuff, even. It was Ramiris who
kept setting them off, with Veldora usually suffering as the
hapless victim. I floated, meanwhile, and Milim could stick
to the ceiling—pitfalls weren’t a concern for us two, so we
forgot to warn the others about them.
That was a mistake, I’ll admit, but Ramiris… Seriously?
Why are you setting off traps? We made sure to give her an
earful about it, and I think she deserved it.
Through all the pain, we skipped out on sleeping to keep
on training. In battle, teamwork was the most important
thing. Normal parties would talk to one another or give
signals with their eyes, but we had pretty much none of
those skills at all. We had Veldora and Milim with us, after
all, two people who were the strongest in the world all by
themselves.
What we did have, however, was one cheat-level skill—
Thought Communication, letting us stay in touch and give
orders with pinpoint accuracy. I was the party’s command
post, Veldora, Milim, and Ramiris serving as my hands and
feet. Thanks to that, we began to rapidly build ourselves,
eventually gaining some decent experience and abilities.
Once we had a good footing, we patiently waited for our
equipment as we fine-tuned our teamwork. As we did, we
heard the news that Team Green Fury had beaten Floor 40.
“Hoo boy,” said Ramiris. “Now they’ve beaten the
tempest serpent, huh?”
“They took a pretty careful approach. The first team was
all about gathering intelligence, the second whittled down
its energy, and then the A team killed it,” said Veldora.
Bosses were resurrected regularly, of course. But if a
boss successfully beat a party, that didn’t erase its current
damage or state of exhaustion. If a group of people had the
right teamwork, this gave them a clear advantage.
“That was a mistake. Bosses really need a way to heal…”
“Yeah, but those monsters work strictly on instinct, so…”
As Veldora saw it, they lacked the intelligence to use
healing items anyway, making it a moot point. He was right,
but we weren’t out of options.
“Why don’t we bring it up with Treyni?” I suggested.
“The labyrinth managers can heal monsters, can’t they?”
“Oh, right. I’ll do that!”
So we decided to have Treyni’s sisters heal bosses if they
were involved in a consecutive streak of battles all at once.
Little by little, we were addressing and solving the
labyrinth’s issues. And then:
“They’re about ready to hit Floor 49. What’ll we do,
Rimuru?” Milim was on the verge of panic. But she was
right. Green Fury would reach their most climactic battle
yet as soon as tomorrow.
“Well, we may not have our equipment at the moment,
but I’d say our
,Yuuki
began to explain the details behind his plan.
With the Jesters given their orders, it was now Kagali’s
turn. She turned to Yuuki, dour-faced.
“So what should I do?”
She was asking about the expedition into the ruins. But
ruins was a misnomer. Really, it was a city that Kagali and
her acquaintances knew well.
Back when she was still the demon lord Kazalim, Kagali
had constructed a defense system for a city that used the
most advanced of magical techniques. That city was the so-
called ancient city in question. Its name was Amrita, and
unlike the surface zone protected by the system Adalmann
was part of, Amrita used a combination of a golem army
and intricate, Kazalim-woven spells for its defense. Even
Viola, the masterpiece Clayman crafted with the skills he
inherited from Kazalim, was only slightly above average
compared to the golems guarding the ruin.
That ruin of Amrita, a ruin with such an impervious
defense system, housed—in essence—the true hidden value
of the Puppet Nation of Dhistav.
Why were a bunch of ruins like Amrita guarded by such
advanced defenses? To learn the answer, one has to go far
back into the past.
Long ago, a city of magic, once ruled by the elves during
their heyday, fell thanks to their own foolishness. After
riling the anger of a non–demon lord—the Dragon Princess
Milim—it was wiped off the face of the planet in a single
night. These formed the ancient ruins that are now referred
to as Soma.
The surviving elves swore to rebuild Soma someday—but
they never did. Unable to resist the violent rage of the
Chaos Dragon, the most horrid of monsters born of their
own hands, they were all but forced out of their homeland.
The Chaos Dragon was a Catastrophe-level threat, not as
powerful as one of the natural-born True Dragons but still
nothing the elves could have ever handled.
Thus, the surviving elves scattered across the land, each
taking their own path. The unlearned peasant classes,
lamenting their sudden misfortunes, relied upon the elven
leader; those with more strength and intelligence cleared
out space to build their own nation. Some of them simply
fled, blending into the background. Thus, thanks to only a
small handful of people, the elves’ glory days were over.
Now the dark elves, accursed by their own sin, set off for
new and distant lands, hoping to escape Milim’s watchful
eye. Kagali—the demon lord Kazalim—was among them,
one of the few members of elven royalty to experience
Milim’s rage and live to tell the tale. Not a demon lord yet
at the time, Kazalim built a city in the region he eventually
found himself in, modeled after his homeland. It was his
way to leave everything elven technology produced intact
before it was gone forever.
That city was Amrita, the capital of the Puppet Nation of
Dhistav.
Kagali shook her head, driving the memories from her
mind.
“Amrita’s defense system is still active. Could we use it
to lure Rimuru into a trap?”
Based on their previous promise, Kagali would be joining
him as they explored the ruins in Clayman’s domain. If she
was asked to direct Rimuru into an ambush, that would be
simple for her. Besides, the only real threats in Kagali’s
mind were Milim and Veldora. If she caught Rimuru alone,
she thought, she’d be able to do away with him. She had no
doubt she could activate the defense system, at least.
But Yuuki didn’t waste a moment to reply.
“That sounds like a neat idea, but you realize the demon
lord Milim might be joining you, right?”
“Well… I think we can work something out. If it’s simply
activating the system, I can do that without coming under
suspicion.”
Kagali, or Kazalim, had already had a nation destroyed
under her feet. Yuuki worried about whether that still
traumatized her, but she didn’t seem to pay it much mind.
She had transformed from an elf to a dark elf, then to a
walking dead and demon lord. Any hang-ups she had about
Milim had been fully conquered in the midst of that. Did
that mean Kagali thought she had a chance against her?
No. It wasn’t impossible so much as it was suicidal.
“All right! In that case, have at it. I doubt it’ll defeat him,
but I was just thinking we need some data on how well
Rimuru can actually fight.”
“You think he can handle all that?”
“Oh, no doubt. So please don’t do anything that might
reveal yourself, all right, Kagali? I know he’s suspecting
me, but right now, you’re neither a friend nor a foe to him.
Be careful that you don’t give him any kind of information.”
“I know, Boss.”
They smiled at each other.
“Great! In that case, we’ll all go make contact with
Misha.”
“And I’ll stay here and keep preparing. So what will you
do, Boss?”
“Me? I’m planning to contact Damrada and expand our
bases of operation in the East. That way, if something
happens, I can always flee over there. But first…”
“Oh, so you are scheming somethin’, then? You’re tellin’
us to lie low, but you’re out pullin’ who knows what?”
Yuuki snickered. “Nothing like that, Laplace. It’s just,
you know, I’m thinking I should play whatever cards I have
in my deck. I haven’t given up on ruling the West, after all.”
He grinned—and then, as they sank into the darkness,
the magic-born quietly began to set their plans in motion.
CHAPTER 1
A BRISK LABYRINTH BUSINESS
The Tempest Founder’s Festival had ended in a resounding
success. Those hectic days of preparation and festivities
were now a good ten days in the past.
Our VIP visitors, as well as the common folk who visited
from neighboring countries, were already gone. The same
was true of Fuze and the king of Blumund; they had
hurriedly made their departure, promising to discuss
matters once they had returned home. Gazel, the dwarven
king, had left in a similar rush to build the science-and-
technology research team he was planning to send my way.
Meanwhile, Elmesia, emperor of Thalion, was nice
enough to purchase one of the lodging houses in the
swankiest district in town, near our reception hall. She had
a teleportation circle installed in one of its rooms, ensuring
she could visit anytime she wanted. That’s the rich for you.
When they buy into something, they go all the way. I still
remember the superiority-laden smile Elmesia gave the
clearly jealous Gazel—chances are he’ll march right back to
Dwargon and have their treasury authorize the cash to
purchase one of our villas.
Maybe I should be thanking Elmesia. Even better, she
agreed to continue employing our local people working
there, under the same conditions. Rigurd was handling all
the details—arranging for regular cleaning, meals when
Elmesia was staying, and so forth.
“Of course, next time I pay a visit, I’ll do so by
transferring my consciousness into a homunculus. That
might prevent me from enjoying myself to the fullest, but
—”
“Your Excellency, we cannot allow such selfishness!”
Once again, the mere fact that Elmesia left her nation’s
boundaries sent shock waves across Thalion. Not that it
was any of my business, but in Erald’s eyes, it must have
been unbearable. Simply mobilizing the Magus, the top-
level knight forces protecting Elmesia, presented huge
national-defense concerns, apparently.
“Ah, I see. Would that apply to Elen, too…?”
Elen, being Erald’s daughter, was elven herself, although
her ears were the regular, rounded human sort.
“No, Elen can visit in person. Homunculi have their
flaws, after all. Spending too long in one can have adverse
effects on one’s own body.”
“Your Excellency! Please do not reveal state secrets such
as this!”
As Elmesia had let me know on the sly, Elen had been
using certain potions to change her appearance and travel
the world unhindered. This alarmed Erald enough that he
apparently assigned a small army to stay in the background
and guard her unnoticed.
By the way, it turned out that her companions, Kabal and
Gido, were both Magus members, too. Shocking, I know. So
after all that whining about deploying the
,teamwork is golden,” said Veldora. “Shall
we try taking them on now?”
“I’m game! Time to use my arms of steel to beat them to
a pulp!” Ramiris crowed.
Those two were always out for blood. Honestly, though, I
don’t think we stood much of a chance in a clean fight. For
now, Floor 49, packed with the most devious traps I ever
devised, was our only real chance at messing with them.
“Well, so be it. Maybe we can scrounge up some
weapons…”
Even if Kurobe and Garm provided us the best gear
possible, we probably wouldn’t take a frontal approach
with them. It’d certainly up our chances a lot, but we could
probably hold our own anyway. But just when I was about
to commit, I heard a knock on the conference-room door.
“Sir Rimuru,” came Shion’s refreshing voice, “Kurobe
said he’s ready.”
Our party looked at one another and grinned.
Our specialized avatar equipment was complete.
I was given a Death Scythe and Hell Garment, two magic
items that even ghosts could wear. Veldora got the Death
Blade and Hell Mail, along with a Hellgate Shield to
complete the picture.
As a slime, Milim could only equip simple objects,
swallowing up a Death Stiletto and covering her body with
a Crimson Cape. The moment she did, her body grew a pair
of bloodred wings—quite a transformation. “See?” she
gleefully shouted. “It’s really true! You need to equip your
items, or else they won’t work!”
Yeah, great. If she was happy, I was happy.
Finally, Ramiris. She had ordered Heavy Fullplate armor,
which looked like a work of art, but we weren’t sure if she
could even equip it. Nervous, she Possessed her living
armor and tried to take it up—and at that very moment, she
switched armor. With a clatter, her old tin suit crashed to
the ground, turning to dust and vanishing in the wind. She
had upgraded from living armor to heavy living armor—not
an evolution, but more like a total replacement.
“Wh-whoa! This is so much easier to move in!”
She was right. Her old, creaky gait was now smooth and
ninja-like. It’d help her teamwork a lot, I was sure. Funny
to think a suit of armor’s feature set could affect the way
you moved, though. Kind of an unexpected discovery.
Elated, Ramiris now had to select a weapon and shield.
“Ha-ha! I don’t need no stupid shield!”
…was her opinion, so she opted for a large two-handed
weapon instead—the Death Axe. The power it packed made
it the ultimate in weapons—wielding it was tricky, but oh
well; not my problem. She got picked on all the time for
being a wimp, so maybe this’ll assuage her ego a little.
Funny how her personality kept coming out like that.
So we were all decked out in brand-new equipment.
These weapons and armor were all on the level of a Unique
item, but since they were heavily modified for use by
monsters, they were more novelty items than anything. For
beginners like us, however, they were crazily overpowered.
What’s more, they had a type of curse applied that
registered our names to them—thus, they could never get
stolen.
It was the best equipment we could’ve possibly asked for
right now, and it gave us a new perspective on everything.
It was almost time to rumble, and we couldn’t have been
more excited.
Time for a quick check of our avatars. My ghost dropped
physical offense in favor of magical and spiritual attacks. It
was classed as a sorcerer, and in time, I’d like to maybe
teach it spiritual and illusory magic so it could make the
upgrade to full-fledged wizard. Holy magic would be a nice
addition, too—what would happen if I placed faith in myself
to drive that? That’d be a fun experiment.
Veldora’s skeleton was an all-rounder, capable of various
kinds of attacks. It was a fighter class, and I think he
wanted to teach it magic so it could become a magic knight
later.
Milim’s slime, meanwhile, was geared entirely for speed
—and for landing telling blows in a single strike. Wish
fulfillment for her, I suppose. Her class was assassin, and
maybe I could have Soei give her some training, but I didn’t
want to occupy his time with our dumb little make-believe
fun here. Her basic strategy involved lunging down on foes
from the ceiling—a powerful strike if it worked, but what
did she intend to do if it didn’t? Run, I suppose; she
certainly was fast enough for it. In a way, she was the ideal
slime fighter.
Finally, as you’d expect, Ramiris’s heavy living armor
was an attacker with more than ample defense, giving it a
lot more stability than I originally gave her credit for. The
class was berserker, and while she was no crazed warrior,
defending herself was never really a priority in Ramiris’s
approach. As a dangerous, attack-oriented creature, that
was the name she was given. Once she got used to things, I
could picture her as a tank, providing a twin wall of
defense with Veldora.
We were all set to go. Given that we never got hungry, long,
dragged-out battles were our lone major advantage. Let’s
do the best job we can to get in Green Fury’s way.
Such was our thoughts as we set off, but…well…we sent
them running so fast, the actual battle was a total letdown.
If you threw away all emotion and ran a completely
impartial, third-party Analyze and Assess on our avatars,
you’d realize that we were probably already pushing an A
in rank. Our equipment was more than half the reason for
that, but even without it, as long as we made good use of
our powers, nothing could stop us.
The main oversight we made was that our own personal
battle experience was reflected in our avatars. We couldn’t
use all our skills, but things like Thought Communication
and Hasten Thought were themselves enough to give us a
decisive edge. Plus, we could cast magic so quickly that it
was really unfair. Our restricted magicules blocked us from
using much of it, but we had the knowledge for it, and thus
we could handle magic better than even your average royal
court sorcerer. This came with no casting time, so we could
engineer tandem magic strikes with practically zero time
lag—our foes had no chance to react.
Veldora, meanwhile, was such a genius with his sword, it
was like he had eyes in the back of his head.
“Kwaah-ha-ha-ha! My Veldora-Style Death Stance gives
me instant access to an infinite number of sword skills! …
Oh, wait, this doesn’t work…”
He was trying to imitate the moves he saw in the manga
he read. I thought he was just screwing around, but some
of his moves were actually kind of plausible. His power was
off the charts to start with, of course, so I should’ve
expected anything and everything from him. Treating this
whole thing seriously at all now seemed silly.
Milim was exactly as blazing fast as she set out to be.
Even speeds that nobody else had a chance at controlling
were no problem with her reflexes. I really had no idea
slimes could move that fast if they tried—sliding frictionless
across the ground, with enough elasticity to bounce off
walls and lunge at foes. That worked just as well off the
ceiling, too. Your average person would have trouble even
following her with their eyes. As a slime myself, these new
discoveries were a huge shock.
“Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha! Slow! Too slow! Face my wrath, you
chump!”
She was getting exceedingly carried away as she
dropped down on her foes’ backs, stabbing with her Death
Stiletto. That was enough to end most battles. Her body
was largely impervious to physical attack, and if you want
to cast magic against her, you needed to capture her in
your sights first. Think about it, and you’ll realize that
Milim’s slime was a pretty scary enemy to face.
But what let Veldora and Milim truly shrine was Ramiris,
the unsung hero of the pack.
“Hraahhh! Time to be crushed!!”
Ramiris’s battle strategy was pretty simple—find an
enemy, run straight at it, and stage a full-frontal attack.
This would be a bad idea for most, an imbecilic strategy,
but in our case, it was the way to go. She never listened to
any of my advice anyway, so I figured we
,might as well take
advantage of her—she’d be our tank, our diversion, and the
remainder of the party could get on the attack then.
Normally, that wouldn’t work too well, but Ramiris ran
around like a daredevil, never bothering to defend herself,
this big suit of armor sprinting for you and spinning a
Death Axe in its hands. Anyone who saw it would be forced
to deal with it—and since she didn’t care about defense,
her attacks tended to find their target. (She also had
Cancel Pain, which helped a lot.)
Plus, the armor itself was pretty sturdy. A Heavy
Fullplate used what seemed like a cartload of magisteel;
weight concerns were tossed out the window with it. It
came with a Self-Repair function as well, so most damage
wasn’t an issue. If a regular person put it on, they probably
wouldn’t be able to move at all. Having such a hefty chunk
of magisteel come your way—well, I wouldn’t want to be
her enemy.
What’s more, I had Recovery Magic.
I had been experimenting with holy magic as part of my
work, and it was surprisingly easy to deploy. It wasn’t a
matter of “having faith in myself” so much as offering
prayers in exchange for control over spiritual particles, a
skill usually shut away from me. In my case, my magical
power as a ghost was sent over to the “real” me along with
the words of prayer. I was, in essence, borrowing force
from my main body to cast magic.
These “words of prayer” were mainly about building up
an image. When working with spiritual particles, you’d
never get anywhere if you kept asking what your disciples
wanted and going with that—it’d take too much calculation.
All that processing work is instead applied to the people
who placed their faith in you. The more disciples you had
like that, the more magic force you got—to put it another
way, you got higher up as a god. You were also connected
to your believers, and you could use those believers’ minds
to expand your calculation capacity—kind of a substitution
cheat that saved you magic force and time.
Now I saw why Luminus sought to build more believers
for herself. With a massive enough number of practitioners,
she could whip up large-scale magic on a passing whim.
The “secret skills of faith and favor,” indeed. That’s some
scary stuff she taught me.
But enough about that. The point is, I had holy magic,
and as a party, we boasted a pretty formidable force—and
right now, like evil personified, we had just wiped out Team
Green Fury on the forty-ninth floor.
You should never be afraid to try something new, I guess.
Our frontal attack failed, so we polished our teamwork and
took advantage of the traps.
I set the Slime Doll on them, damaging their weapons. I
used the Slime Rain to break their focus and exhaust them
—and then we attacked, throwing them into the Slime Pool.
While Ramiris’s bellowing grabbed their attention, Milim
sneaked up on them, breaking down their teamwork as
Veldora split them apart and isolated their rear support.
Our giant slime crushed their powerless magicians and
thieves, while Veldora and Ramiris bear-hugged the
remaining core members straight into the Slime Pool,
sinking them down. Our aim was to destroy their weapons
in the acidic goop, and once Green Fury’s main weapons
had corroded into useless fragments, that’d be a huge
damper on their dungeon-conquering speed.
“Ugghh! After all that swag we earned!!”
It turns out the leader of the Sons of the Veldt, the one
currently whining about the equipment dissolving in her
hands, was female. That surprised me—but not as much as
what her companions said next.
“Well, maybe this timing’s for the best. It was about the
right moment to pack up.”
“Yeah, our home country’s calling for us anyway.”
I definitely heard one of the survivors from the team say
that to the leader. I thought the Sons of the Veldt was an
independent mercenary corps, unaffiliated with any other
nation. My reports stated they were being funded by
someone in Englesia, but maybe it was more like a long-
term gig? The term home country indicated that they
might’ve had more loyalty to Englesia than a simple
employer-employee relationship. I’d need to keep an eye on
them.
As long as we were encouraging people to use the
Dungeon, we’d naturally see visitors with murky origins. I
was expecting that from the beginning, but we should
probably give everyone another heads-up about that. The
whole Green Fury thing reminded me of it all over again.
Besides:
“We did it.”
“Yes. Victory is ours!”
“Why wouldn’t it be? We are the strongest in the
world!!”
If I didn’t keep these idiots in line, they’d immediately
get distracted by the next victory ahead. The thought was
in my mind, but—right now, at least—I didn’t let it get in
the way of my joy. Mission accomplished.
INTERLUDE
MARIBEL
Maribel had been resurrected as an otherworlder. She had
memories of being a ruler in Europe. In her previous life,
she had all the finances she wanted; to her, war was just
another pawn for her to use.
Her glory was built on misfortune. A battlefield, bullets
flying. Kill or be killed; a vivid hellscape bathed in blood.
Burnt homes, lost families, wailing people. And she never
held any remorse about it. Maribel’s life was a happy one,
all the way to the end of her natural life span.
And now she was here, born as a princess in the small
Kingdom of Seltrozzo.
Her family was in the ruling class, the people calling the
shots in the Western Nations. In this world filled with
monsters and chaos, nations couldn’t afford to squabble
with one another; it was natural that something like the
Council of the West would be formed. That council was
built hundreds of years ago by Granville Rozzo, the great
founder of the Rozzo family and a mysterious, seemingly
ageless figure.
He was the oldest among the Five Elders who held
actual power in the Council, while still serving as head of
the Rozzos, who had taken root in the Western Nations.
Even a princess directly related to Granville wouldn’t have
so much as a chance to see him. Maribel’s own brothers, in
fact, had never even met the Five Elders before. But
Maribel was different. Her memories, and her will, were
things Granville couldn’t afford to ignore.
The advance of civilization would have been impossible
without the existence of money. People advanced from
using crops like rice and wheat as currency to a money-
based economy, pushing society forward by leaps and
bounds thanks to the scale money allows.
The value of money could also change. Gold and silver
coins were made of metals with intrinsic value,
guaranteeing that the money itself would have similar
value. But now we were in an era where things like receipts
and bonds in business transactions could serve as
substitutes for money—the start of a paper-based economy.
This would lead to the creation of banks, outposts
indispensable to free exchange. You gave banks money;
they gave you receipts as they diverted the money to other
things, lending it to those without cash and earning
interest from them.
That was the business model people eventually came up
with, and it was a kind of magic more insidious than
alchemy. Money, in the form of interest, seemingly
appeared out of nowhere. Comparing the amount of cash
circulating in the world and the total amount of receipts
generated, there was clearly going to be a substantial
amount of irrecoverable funds—as well as people in deep
trouble after not being able to pay up.
If you lent money and charged interest, you would
always have that problem. The shift from coinage to paper
currency only sped up the process.
People collected money from the rich, dangling interest
payments as bait. They invested it to create even more
money. Business exchanges began to take place on a
worldwide scale, beyond national borders. Limits on the
production of paper money were removed, under the pat
promise that the nation would be good for it all. Combine
that
,with exchange controls caused by power differences
between nations, and the scale of the economy blew up to
dozens of times its original size—and Maribel was even
factoring the amount of currency produced into her
calculations as she controlled the market.
Much of it was a fiction, far removed from the actual
economy. A bubble that was bound to pop sooner or later.
In her past life as well, Maribel blew the bubble up as
much as she could. Any debts she couldn’t recover, she
shunted off on the weaker nations and disposed of—in
other words, waging wars to balance her accounts. The
weaker nations thus fell, and the rich got richer. The
parties being harvested for everything they had went from
individuals to whole nations, but the basic process was the
same.
Maribel was a seasoned master at this. She was a golden
child of finance in her previous life, and she had both her
memories from that and the intensely powerful greed of a
ruler. This manifested itself in her unique skill Avarice, a
sinful skill based on one of humankind’s core vices. If a
unique skill was a set of emotions and desires that took
corporeal form, those based on a cardinal sin like greed
were treated as special cases among uniques.
In the case of Maribel, the strongest member of the
Rozzo family since the day she was born, that truth was
obvious. The Avarice skill let her hold sway over people’s
desires—she could literally see them, and the bigger the
desire, the easier she found it to rule over them. Everyone
had desires, of course, and stoking those desires let
Maribel control them any way she wanted. And, little by
little, she used that to slowly build her audience of
sympathizers.
There was no urgent need to act. Observing the people
around her, she could tell that the standards of civilization
in this world were pretty low. There was a money-driven
economy but still a single currency that circulated across
the whole of it. There were no language barriers;
everything was different from the last world, but in a way,
the environment was perfect for her to take advantage of.
To Maribel, the whole world seemed like a sandbox, ready
for her to play in.
Yes… Yes. I am destined to descend upon this world as
its rightful ruler.
Ruling this world, to Maribel, was a natural goal to have.
Once she was older and had the right to speak up, the
world was hers for the taking—but until then, she thought,
the fewer people who knew about her ambitions, the better.
Ever so carefully, she made sure no one could guess her
true nature from her behavior. And when she was three
years old, she had her first audience with Granville.
“So you’re Maribel?”
“Yes, Grandfather. It is a pleasure to meet you.”
It wasn’t a three-year-old’s usual way to greet someone,
but Maribel had accounted for that in her calculations.
Granville wasn’t like the other rabble skulking around the
palace; to her, even her father, the king, was just another
pawn. Her brothers, her wet nurse, her servants, and
everyone else—as she read their desires, she methodically
brought them under her rule.
But Granville was different. He was above all that.
“Why didn’t you try to control me?” Granville asked,
seeing that Maribel had promptly dropped the act. There
was no familial kindness to it. All that existed was the
relationship between the ruler and the ruled. It was then
that Maribel learned her instincts were correct. If she had
tried to deceive Granville, she likely would’ve been killed
on the spot. Not even Maribel’s Avarice skill was
omnipotent. It could be resisted. After repeated, gradual
attempts, it might’ve been possible to bring Granville under
her rule, but he wasn’t the kind of man to allow that.
Maribel was confident of that, so she decided to be
honest. No matter how things played out, she would need
partners—and along those lines, Granville could potentially
be the greatest partner she’d ever have.
“I can see people’s desires. I mean literally see them.
And prodding them allows me to make them do my bidding.
But you’re not like the others, Grandfather. You have a
greater ambition than anyone else, but you’ve also got a
will strong enough to bottle it up. So…”
“Hmm. So you’ve seen that far, little girl—or should I call
you Maribel? Who are you anyway?”
“Me? I’m Maribel. Maribel the Greedy.”
“Heh-heh… Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! I like it. Declaring your very
presence before me, are you?!”
The head of the Rozzo family liked Maribel. In time, they
opened up to each other, sharing in the secrets they knew.
Granville knew about the politics surrounding the Western
Nations, as well as the demon lords who ruled the world.
Maribel knew about her previous world, as well as the
Avarice skill she acquired in this one. To her, this was the
gamble of a lifetime.
Her brain was one thing, but her body was still that of a
three-year-old. As she saw it, it’d be difficult to survive all
on her own.
No matter what it takes—no matter what—I need to firm
up my position. And to do that…
To do that, she needed to prove to Granville Rozzo, the
local kingpin, that she was useful. Instinctively, she
understood that was the best thing she could do right now
to set herself up as ruler.
And the gamble paid off.
“Maribel, if something happens to me, I want you to
inherit my ambitions. What I seek in this world is peace. We
must reach a world of universal equality, under the rule of
the Rozzo family.”
“Yes. Yes, Grandfather, I understand. I promise I will
provide you with my full cooperation.”
Thus, this unlikely pair forged a bond that none other
could enjoy. The family founder and the little girl—the
alliance between a former Hero and one whose avarice
knew no bounds.
Granville spent the next several years guiding Maribel,
instructing her on the full array of Rozzo holdings and
coconspirators. He also revealed the true identity of the
god Luminus, as well as his own secrets—the underground
dealings he engaged in to protect his seat in the Seven
Days Clergy, as well as how the demon lord Luminus’s
power was what truly kept the Western Nations safe.
He told her everything. And now, at the age of ten,
Maribel was second only to Granville in power, using her
skills to the fullest to take action against Rimuru.
CHAPTER 3
THE COUNCIL
Here in Seltrozzo, a small northern kingdom, a
conversation was underway between a boy and an old man.
The boy was Yuuki Kagurazaka, grand master of the Free
Guild, and the man was named Johann Rostia—Council
mainstay, generous benefactor to the Guild, and prince of
the Kingdom of Rostia.
As his last name suggested, he was the elder brother of
Rostia’s current king, but he was also one of the Five
Elders who controlled the Council. He always held his
confidential meetings here, in Seltrozzo, a small, rural
nation perfect for avoiding the eyes of the Western Nations.
This was because Seltrozzo was home to a safe house
run by the Selt Foreign Information Bureau, the leading
intelligence agency in all the Western Nations. The SFIB
was established as a risk-management group, surveilling
the lands outside human control and preparing for any
upcoming monster threats. It had a group of talented
agents, all of them ranked B or above, and its small number
made it truly a team of elites. Any location under their
protection would be impossible for foreign agents to
infiltrate, and that was why Johann used this house for all
of his most delicate meetings.
“Well, can I hear your report, then?”
“Right. It’s pretty clear that the demon lord Rimuru’s
fully on to me. I went out of my way not to leave any
evidence, using merchants from the East and so on, but
regardless…”
“Then can’t you talk your way out of any suspicion?”
“Yes, my own staff suggested the same thing, but there’s
no guarantee ‘talking my way out of it’ would keep me safe,
you know? He is a demon lord, keep in mind. Rile him the
wrong the way, and it’d be like stepping on a
,tiger’s tail.”
Yuuki didn’t hide the fact that Rimuru was suspecting
him. He had no reason to. After all, Johann—this Five
Elders member—was essentially Yuuki’s boss.
Boss was the right term, because this was strictly a
business relationship between the two, one that existed
because they both profited from it. The Council funded the
Free Guild, and in exchange, the Guild carried out work for
the Council. It was a simple, give-and-take sort of
agreement—on the surface.
From the Guild’s point of view, they couldn’t survive
without support like this from the world’s nations, the
funding and preferential access it received for its
organization’s work. The Guild had more influence now
than back in its Society of Adventurers days, but in terms
of power, it still wasn’t above the Council. It was the
behind-the-scenes support from Johann the Elder that
helped Yuuki develop the Free Guild as much as he had
these past few years; that was another reason Yuuki had to
mind his manners around him.
“And you can’t defeat this demon lord?”
“Are you kidding me? The way I see it, you could
assemble a hundred A rankers, and it still wouldn’t be
possible.”
“You’d go that far? Perhaps it’s smarter not to make him
our enemy, then. But…”
Johann paused, his sharpened eyes glaring at Yuuki,
before continuing.
“…it is the elders’ opinion that the demon lord Rimuru is
a hindrance. And your missteps are the cause, Yuuki.”
“Oh? What do you mean?”
“Your little conspiracy with the demon lord Clayman. If
that had succeeded, we wouldn’t have had to deal with
those sniveling Eastern merchants to open trade routes
with the Empire. Once we had secured that, all we’d have
to is wait for Veldora to fade into oblivion a few centuries
from now, and the Forest of Jura would no longer be a
threat. In fact, demon lords like Carillon and Frey could’ve
served as protective walls for us. And now look.”
“Well, I don’t see what I could’ve done, you know? You
really can’t plan for someone like him.”
Johann was one of the people aware of the plans Yuuki’s
group was working on. They were applying their own spin
to the games played among the demon lords, trying to work
them to their own advantage. And the whole reason that
was possible…
“Yes. Yes, you’re right. You couldn’t have done anything.
We never could’ve imagined a monster like that in our way.
But couldn’t you have bested him?”
It was the young girl who entered the room now, silently
closing the door behind her. Maribel Rozzo, the very person
who’d formulated this whole plan. She slipped into an
ornate chair, joining the other two.
“Oh… M-Maribel. And is the venerable Granville with
you?”
“No, I’ve come by myself today. But I’d still like to hear
the answer to that question.”
Maribel turned to Yuuki, paying Johann little mind.
“…It’s just not possible,” he replied, as if captured by
her gaze. “Rimuru alone would be a challenge, but he’s got
the Storm Dragon with him, too, you know? Forget it.
There’s nothing anyone can do about him.”
“You saw Veldora?”
“Yeah. He was going around in human form, but he
introduced himself as Veldora and everything.” Yuuki
meekly answered the question.
Maribel expected nothing less from him. “Right. The
demon lord Rimuru is the key to sealing Veldora away. If we
let that evil dragon free, he’ll spread ruin across the whole
world. Grandfather told me himself.”
“Indeed,” Johann said. “Your grandfather personally
witnessed the darkest days of that dragon’s rampage. He’s
always quick to remind me of why our god is so fearful of
him.”
“Yes, and now Rimuru has tamed him. Meddling with
them is dangerous…but if we want my Rozzo family to
prosper, we need to crush the rise of Tempest.”
“What a headache this is. Yuuki, couldn’t you defeat
Rimuru if you truly put your mind to it?”
Johann was now repeating himself. Combined with
Maribel, they had now asked the same question three
times. Didn’t Yuuki have what it takes to beat Rimuru? But
this time, Yuuki had a different answer.
“We’re talking about someone not even Hinata could
beat, you know? It’s gonna be really hard for me to win if I
fight him. My chances could go way up under the right
conditions, but…”
What it sounded like he meant was: If it was just the
demon lord Rimuru by himself, maybe they could make it
happen.
“…So what’s your next move?” Maribel asked.
“My general strategy will be to avoid direct
confrontation with Rimuru. Even if I did beat him, I just
don’t see it earning us much. We’d have to pay far too
much of a price for it.”
Yuuki went on to discuss their future plans, including
Kagali’s upcoming ruins expedition. As Maribel had
ordered, he was leaking out the info he gained from
Clayman, and Maribel and Johann were now acting on it.
Maribel thought for a moment.
Eliminating Rimuru, or at least rendering him harmless,
was something she wanted to achieve at any cost. The
greatest wish of the Rozzo family would have to go
unfulfilled otherwise. Maybe it’d be easier to seize the
world if they worked with the demon lord, but Maribel had
already deemed that a poor choice.
The problem was their differences in thinking. With this
world as well, Maribel intended to take it from a single,
gold-based standard currency to a paper-based economy
spearheaded by each individual country. She wouldn’t
eliminate the current money system; she’d just implement
new currencies in each nation. It didn’t have to be paper
either; silver or copper or whatever was fine, too. Basically,
if she could build a world where currency markets went up
or down depending on the power of all nations involved,
then perfect.
That’s how foreign exchange worked, and it’d be the
Council—and the will of the Five Elders—that set it up.
That was the one absolute must to victory here—they
needed to be the people deciding the value of things.
Against the weaker nations, they’d even levy punishing
taxes or conscript their populations into military service in
the name of monster hunting. It was a perfectly legal way
to subjugate one nation under the rule of a stronger one.
All the conditions were in place. There were no
outstanding issues to deal with. Maribel’s plan to
economically rule over the nations in the Council of the
West was proceeding along fine—even Granville was happy
with it. They had spent the past few years completing the
groundwork for it. And now, with the rise of Rimuru and his
nation of monsters, it was all going haywire.
Maybe things weren’t in crisis mode yet, but Maribel
could see what was in store. The demon lord Rimuru would
likely offer the Western Nations their defensive support, in
a bid to win their trust. With all that military power in the
backdrop, he’d have them open up an economic
relationship, to a certain extent, using Blumund, a small
kingdom, as a foothold into the West. He’d run all the
logistics, give his people the joy of working, and guarantee
their safety.
I wish he wouldn’t mess with me, Maribel thought. Other
large nations, like Dwargon and Thalion, were already
complete, permanent packages—she may not have liked
them, but she could accept them. But right now, Tempest
was riding straight into Maribel and her companions’ home
turf. If they expressed a desire to join the Council of the
West, it’d be like torching their personal hunting grounds.
A declaration of war.
She refused to accept that. She was sure that she and
the demon lord Rimuru were incompatible with each other
at the core. There could only be just one ruler—a single,
overwhelming force. You had to be the one calling the
shots, or else you were never promised a sure victory. And
as long as the Rozzo family was attempting to rule all of
humanity, Rimuru would always be an obstacle. Even if
they could work in harmony at first, it was clear to her that
they’d grow apart over their respective interests.
That was why Maribel saw the demon lord Rimuru as
such a threat.
It was easy to say
,she’d eliminate Rimuru, but actually
doing it was much harder.
She had participated in the Founder’s Festival, so she
could have a chance to observe him. It took some
convincing with Granville, but he gave his okay after she
promised not to do anything to Rimuru. The visit convinced
her that she was right all along. Tempest was just too
attractive of a city, brimming with desires, and in time it’d
become the cutting edge of trends, building a new age for
the whole world. The more they opened up and forged
deeper relations with other nations, the more valuable it’d
become—and before long, the Rozzos would no longer be
able to make unilateral decisions.
Yes… Yes. Everything’s going the way the demon lord
Rimuru wants it…
The mere thought made Maribel want to fly into a rage.
She resisted the urge as she pondered how to respond.
Defeating him was out of the question. Even if they
succeeded, they had no idea how Veldora would respond.
Letting a monster capable of wiping out a force of twenty
thousand elites single-handedly go around unfettered was
the height of folly.
So that left rendering him harmless—either through
coercion or persuasion.
If they opted for coercion, Duke Meusé’s failures offered
some important lessons. Maribel had perfectly set the
table, hoping to indebt Rimuru in a way that followed every
rule. Instead, Rimuru followed the rules to take revenge.
The duke was a fool for misreading the opportunity, but
what really deserved praise was the personal connections
Rimuru enjoyed.
Yes. If there’s a snake in the grass, you’d have to be a
fool to prod at it…
And now the demon lord wanted to join the Council. It
was easy to oppose that.
Maribel had cornered the market for grain, in
anticipation of upcoming wars. Now, thanks to Farmus’s
civil war, the marketplace was having to turn to private
stores to keep their shelves full.
Maybe we should disguise people as night bandits and
have them torch the villages around the big cities. That
way…
They could keep raising the prices of staple foods, as
well as restrict the amount of bread that entered the
market. With the smaller nations, just a little bit of
tightening could lead to major food distress. When people
lacked food, they got angry, and that anger was directed at
the people who started the war. There was nothing easier
than riling up the unintelligent masses, and pinning all the
blame on Rimuru would be a straightforward task.
And then—voilà. The representatives from those smaller
nations would oppose Rimuru’s Council bid. It’d be
perfectly simple for Maribel to engineer.
But…
No… No. It used to be a given that you couldn’t
magically transport food, but I guess that demon lord’s
made it happen. Judging by the sheer variety on offer in
their dinner banquets, I think it’s safe to assume that. And
given his connections to people as big as King Gazel and
Elmesia of Thalion, accepting him would probably lead to
fewer problems…
Engineering food shortages in the smaller nations could
just give Rimuru a chance to provide them with support. If
they scoffed at that plan and tried to coerce him out of it,
they’d just be repeating Duke Meusé’s error. As Maribel
concluded, trying something that already failed once could
very easily come back to bite them.
She wasn’t self-absorbed enough to think she could carry
everything out flawlessly. All she needed to do was proceed
slowly, methodically, and carefully. With that in mind,
winning Rimuru over to her side seemed more doable.
If we want to sway him, we should try meeting with him
and offering a chance to join a united front. If I’m willing to
compromise a little—No, I can’t do that. No need to be
timid. I’m Maribel the Greedy. Whether he’s a demon lord
or not, I swear I can rule over him!
There’s no other option, she thought.
The unique skill Avarice could freely control its target,
ruling over their desires and making them do their bidding.
Just as she had done with Yuuki, Maribel could easily bring
him under her rule, with him none the wiser.
She had not one, but two ways of doing this.
The first was to overwrite the target’s desires with
Maribel’s own, making them into a cooperative partner
with the same goals. This approach had a weakness—she
needed to be within conversational distance of the target to
trigger it. Plus, like a slow-acting poison, it took a certain
amount of time to take full effect. If she didn’t want to
arouse the target’s suspicion, she’d have to make several
contacts with them to make it seem more natural—and
since the conversation would need a reason to take place,
there was only so much desire she could inject at once. It
required a major time commitment.
The second approach, meanwhile, went much faster—it
involved using Avarice to force the target to accept her
rule. A quick injection of greed could even destroy the
target’s self-awareness, turning them into a living puppet.
This, of course, was much more dangerous. Depending
on the size of the target’s desire, this approach could also
take some time—and even if it only took a few seconds,
that’d be more than enough for someone as powerful as the
demon lord Rimuru to kill Maribel. Taking this tactic
required very careful preparation, which was why Maribel
immediately gave up on it against Granville.
Those were the two ways Avarice could take over a
person. And given the way that it worked on people’s
primordial desires, there wasn’t a soul in this world that
could resist it. The main drawback was its dependency on
time, not to mention the size of the target’s desire.
No matter which approach she took, Maribel couldn’t
take over a target unless they had a certain amount of
desire inside them. The larger that desire, the firmer the
grip Maribel could have over them. But what if the desire
wasn’t big enough? Given that Avarice controlled people’s
desires, if there wasn’t much to work with, the skill
couldn’t influence them enough to be successful. She could
prod that desire, inflating it enough so she could take hold,
but again, that took time and opened her up to suspicion.
That was why she couldn’t take over the mind of Hinata
the Saint. Maybe she could if they met more often, but
Hinata would’ve questioned her motives if she kept
popping in for no reason. Maribel couldn’t risk that much
danger, so she gave up on the effort. On the other hand,
she held regular secret meetings with Yuuki through
Johann the Elder. Seizing his mind was easy.
Now her main question was Rimuru.
I saw him up close, but he didn’t seem to have much
desire despite all his outrageous behavior. It’s not fair…
At the dinner banquet, she had a direct view of Rimuru.
With that insight, she felt what might be just barely enough
to rule over his desires. With a desire that small, she could
take it over quickly with just a few sessions, but it wouldn’t
give her much overall influence on his behavior. Of course,
once she got that foothold, the rest would come falling
down after it, she figured.
If worse came to worst, she could use her final option. If
that worked, the demon lord would be Maribel’s to use as
she pleased—and since Rimuru had tamed Veldora, the
Storm Dragon would essentially be hers to control as well.
A dragon even the supreme being Lubelius feared. An
attractive prize, to be certain.
Best to keep up my observations for now. Then I can
consider my options and come up with the safest approach
to subdue him!
Her mind made up, it was time to concoct a strategy.
Yuuki advised against direct confrontation with Rimuru.
That’s why the demon lord Kazalim, under the guise of
Kagali, would be guiding him through the ruins. Those
ruins had their dangers, but apparently Kagali had no
intention of putting Rimuru in harm’s way inside them. She
could use that as part of her game plan.
“Let’s send him a letter. We can invite Rimuru to the
Council and see how he reacts.”
“You think the demon lord would
,agree to it?”
“No worries there. Joining the Council of the West is one
of his burning desires.”
“How curious.”
“Well, Rimuru wants to work hand in hand with humans.
He wants to prove that the monsters under him are
harmless as long as we stick to his rules.”
Yuuki’s explanation made sense to Maribel, as dumb as it
sounded to her. Being bound by rules meant losing your
freedom. Doing away with your demon lord military force?
Staying on the same tier as the human race? It seemed
supremely stupid to her.
“So why don’t we make that dream come true? Then I
can inject him with my poison,” said Maribel.
“Ooh, scary. Isn’t Yuuki Kagurazaka just as strong as
Hinata the Saint? If he and Rimuru fought for real, he has
good prospects to win, I think. But now that you have him,
you want a demon lord as well?”
“Yuuki’s ambition is too strong. He doesn’t even realize
I’m controlling him. He thinks he’s making these
negotiations out of his own free will.”
As Maribel explained right in front of Yuuki himself, this
was a happy thing for him. Her rule over him meant that he
wouldn’t be pushed down by any excessive greed. Yuuki
ignored it all, not responding to it—that was how perfect
her domination was of him.
“…And I’m sure the demon lord Rimuru is like a child
before you, Maribel. And you’ll have full control of him?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I’m just worried that your rule could be broken,
somehow.”
She flashed a cold look at the flustered Johann. “There’s
no need to worry about that. Once I cloud someone’s
desires, they’ll never return to normal. Not unless you
overwrite the desires I implant in them.”
Maribel was greed personified, enough so to cultivate
the unique skill Avarice within her. There was nobody in the
world who could desire something more. She was fully
convinced of that, and it made her laugh off Johann’s
concern.
“Y-yes, I imagine not. I trust in you on that, Maribel.”
Johann the Elder tried not to invite Maribel’s wrath upon
him. She was the de facto number two after Granville, and
not even an elder was safe around her. If he got on her bad
side, she might try to control his mind next. He had made a
blood oath with Granville to avoid that, but once Maribel
took over, he didn’t think he could rely on that oath too
much. Thus, he never dared to lift a finger against her.
“Everything we say in here is a secret, all right?”
“Of course, Maribel. I’m not in any hurry to die.”
“Smart decision. Now, Johann, I want you to send a letter
to Rimuru, leader of Tempest, for me. I’ll write it out for
you right now, so make sure it reaches him before the next
Council meeting, please.”
Without waiting for a response, Maribel began writing
the letter. The sight of her scribbling away on the fancy,
expensive paper struck terror in Johann’s heart. It was the
kind of terror you’d feel if a girl like Maribel, hardly even
ten, treated bossing people around like it was her God-
given right. She had the air of a ruler, and not one of the
Five Elders was a match for her.
“All right, Maribel. You can leave that to me.”
He left the room quietly with Yuuki, not wanting to
bother her.
Even after Yuuki and Johann left, Maribel continued to
weigh her options. She had all the time in the world. She
would draw up plans, lay out the framework, and see this
through. She had more than enough pawns at her disposal.
And once again…
This’ll be fun. This’ll be so much fun.
…Maribel, the girl who trusted not a soul in the world,
got lost in her own reverie.
The man fell to the ground, a flood of red, bloodlike
particles shooting out in front of him. His eyes had burst
open in surprise; he probably never saw it coming.
“Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! You left yourself open, you fool!”
Milim’s excited voice thundered across the hall as the
man’s five remaining companions grew tense and nervous.
They banded together, keeping a wary eye on their
surroundings—but they could do nothing.
“Blowing wind, grow into a tornado and slice into my
enemies! Time to rage—Tornado Blade!!”
Bunching up like that was a mistake, and I all but
sneered as my Tornado Blade slashed into them. This was
kind of a ranged version of Windcutter, one that cost a lot
of magicules but caused slashing damage to multiple
enemies within a given space. This made it great for battles
against groups of foes.
Milim had acted first, sneaking up on one person as he
went ahead to check for traps. After killing him, she quickly
shot out of the area to avoid getting caught in my magic.
The group had no idea what happened; the moment they
huddled up for safety, Milim was out of the way, and they
were cut to ribbons by my Windcutter.
“Look out, it’s Scarlet! Be careful!”
“Shit! That magic got Marja and Nadja. And Gene’s not
breathing either?!”
“Damn you! All of you!!”
The surviving enemies, beginning to appreciate their
situation, started ranting at us. By enemies, of course, I
meant the labyrinth challengers.
We were dealing with a group of adventurers this time,
by the looks of it, and a pretty well-balanced one at that.
But our party had the power and experience to outclass
them. That first surprise attack took out the enemy’s main
search specialist, and before they even knew we were near,
my opening magic landed the first strike. Even before we
noticed them, we had an invisibility magic deployed,
allowing us to discover the enemy first. This magic was
canceled once we began to attack, but by then, our foes
had already lost one or two people—the magic attacker and
healer in the back row, to boot. That decided the battle
right there.
Now that they could see us, the enraged front-row
adventurers were making a beeline for us.
“Kwah-ha-ha-ha-ha! Tough luck!!”
“Ohhhhh-hoh-hoh-hoh! You’re not getting past us!”
Veldora and Ramiris were certainly enjoying themselves
as they withstood their charge. By now, I had nothing left to
do—just take up a supporting role and make sure those two
had enough space to move in.
I used my Analysis magic to examine the fighters
running toward us. Above them, I could see bright-red bars
that were less than half full.
“They got less than half of their HP left. You guys can
take care of them yourselves, right?”
There was no self-aggrandizing there.
Yes, the red bars above the fighters’ heads showed their
remaining stamina. That was what I configured my
personal Analysis magic to display; I tried to set it up like a
video game for instant comprehension. If other people used
the same magic, they’d probably see something different—
regardless, it was pretty convenient for me. The familiar
readouts let me quickly confirm the situation and give out
the most suitable instructions to my team.
By this point, we were pretty much guaranteed to win. A
front-row set of fighters with no rear support was no match
for Veldora and Ramiris. With no one buffing or magically
healing them, we’d continually whittle down their stamina
until it was over. A more careful party would’ve kept a
barrier over them at all times…but not this one, apparently.
It didn’t take long for my two companions to prove me
right, smiling insidiously as they slashed the remaining
three adventurers into a bloody mess. It was an easy win.
Using Milim’s surprise attacks and my magic to dispatch
the scouts and back row first was proving to be a sure-win
tactic for us. Of course, we’d been kind of overfishing the
pond, so to speak, so our efficiency was starting to suffer. It
wasn’t perfect yet, but more and more parties were
learning how to counter us. These challengers weren’t
fools, after all, and they were clearly making a dedicated
effort each day. I was glad to see that, but we needed new
strategies to deal with them.
…As I thought about this, the final survivor disappeared
into a flurry of light particles. The battle was over—another
sight I was getting used to.
“We did it! These punks were no challenge at all!!”
“Heh-heh-heh… You’re right! We’re
,invincible, the
strongest there is!”
“Kwah-ha-ha-ha-ha! All these little ants! They leave me a
tad unsatisfied, but…”
My companions were getting thoroughly carried away
now.
…What were we doing, you ask? Well, researching new
battle techniques against the labyrinth’s challengers, of
course. We were eager to learn, so we’d been putting in a
lot of hours down here.
………
……
…
I mean, you heard of Team Green Fury, right? We were
able to beat them last time, but we can’t rest on our
laurels. They got called back to their “home country” or
whatever, and they may never come back—but maybe they
just had some trouble procuring new equipment. We didn’t
know if they’d pay a return visit sometime, and we wanted
to be ready to fend them off if it happened.
Thus, even after Green Fury was behind us, we kept
diving into the labyrinth, sliding into a familiar pattern of
fighting off challengers. It kept the labyrinth lively, too.
A few days after our pitched battle with Green Fury,
Masayuki’s party made it past Floor 40.
Masayuki really was born under a lucky star. Apparently,
acquiring the entire Ogre Series of equipment was pretty
simple for them. It was only natural, then, that they
stomped all over the tempest serpent. Now their focus was
conquering Floor 50.
The news of Masayuki breaching the forties energized
the rest of the challengers. That was just what we hoped
for, and now the more talented parties were aiming for
Floor 40 as well.
Our experiments with releasing some videos of the boss
battle gave us a huge response, too. The recording of
Masayuki’s team fighting the tempest serpent, as shown on
our projector, created buzz all over town; people wanted us
to play it again and again.
As Mjöllmile and I saw it, this was a business
opportunity. In a TV-free world like this one, battle footage
from the labyrinth was as good as entertainment got. We
may need to edit out some of the gorier content—but then
again, maybe there’d be demand for the uncut version, for
the right price. We could work on that. Of course, there’d
also be broadcasting rights, likeness rights, all those other
little details…but I could let Mjöllmile work on that for me.
In fact, I bet Masayuki’s smile could sell a lot of different
products. The endorsement contracts alone might make
him rich. He’d be happy; Mjöllmile would be happy; we’d
all be happy. It’d be a trial-and-error process, but I’d like to
see how that worked out.
And video content wasn’t restricted to the footage
recorded by magical items. In fact, we had a lot more saved
up. Raphael was reading a massive amount of data from
the labyrinth and running Analyze and Assess on it made it
possible to replay entire fights in visual form. We used that,
for example, to create highlight reels for challengers—and
this, too, was a huge hit when we broadcast it. It really
riled up the more attention hungry of the challengers; one
of them reportedly claimed his video footage helped him
find a girlfriend.
Even people who didn’t really take the Dungeon
seriously were starting to get into it, thanks to our shows.
And I understood it. Maybe it was a little self-serving, but if
it whipped up enthusiasm, then great. But it was our job to
give them a dose of reality, too. Tough love was in order
here—we couldn’t let them get soft—and so we continued
to hop inside our avatars and torment the challengers.
Nowadays, people were calling us the Dungeon
Dominators, fearing and respecting us. Our appearance
had dramatically changed as well.
The ghost I controlled now had a Fear Aura, a bluish-
white, flame-like shimmer that burned around its body. I
liked it; it really added to the atmosphere. Veldora’s
skeleton, meanwhile, had all of its bones refurbished—after
seeing Ramiris change her armor out, he started whining
about his own upgrades. “A golden skull would suit me
well,” he said when I asked. Eesh.
I thought about ignoring him, but considering my project
for Diablo, I figured Veldora may as well join my
experimentation with temporary bodies. I could, for
example, replace his skeleton with a framework made of
whatever metal I wanted to test out. Pure gold has
durability issues, so I decided to go with the strongest
material I had, although it was still in the experimental
stage. It happened to be golden in color, too, so it worked
well.
This material is known as orichalc, a special alloy made
by adding gold to magisteel and refining it with a denser
dose of magicules than usual. Focusing on the “everlasting”
element of gold and other precious metals, I was hoping to
add that element to magisteel as well. The results were a
grand success—this orichalc was better than magisteel in
all aspects, not just strength. It was crazy. The only
problem was that I couldn’t produce much of it—gold itself
is both rare and unavailable for mass production—but hey,
Veldora asked nicely, so I prepared an orichalc skeleton for
him.
Just like with Ramiris, the bones could be made of
anything as long as he hung on to his master core. The
conversion was a total snap, and now he was a gold-colored
skeleton fighter. The durability far outclassed his original
bones; it was excellent, almost needlessly so. As he moved
around in it, I kept a careful watch, seeing how much
punishment it could take and whether any problems
cropped up.
Milim, meanwhile, was now a celebrity—a terrorizing
sight that people had named Scarlet. Her unbelievable
speed made her look like a crimson shooting star, they said.
Her battle style, abandoning everything except speed and
relying on quickness and critical hits, had made her a
legend…one spoken of in hushed, fearful tones.
Even Ramiris had changed a little. Like the proactive
fighter she was, she had taken on a more eerie presence, a
purple Death Aura shimmering around her heavy living
knight’s frame. One swing of her Death Axe overwhelmed
her foes, and her unrelenting battle style made her well-
known as a suit of armor who fought like a berserker. That
knight might even be stronger than the real Ramiris…
Actually, I take that back. Wouldn’t want to damage her
reputation.
So we had become famous in just a few days. The
reaction from the challengers was just as great. They
feared us, keeping a keen lookout for our presence. That
made sense. We were stronger than some of the weaker
bosses, and in terms of sheer malice, far above them.
As I mentioned, our main goal was to research fighting
techniques in the labyrinth. This wasn’t playtime for us—I
can’t emphasize this enough. Day in and day out, we gave
our all to the research, and I was sure this persistent effort
would come in handy for us someday.
And it did. Challengers would occasionally use rare extra
skills against us—or even original magics that I presume
they invented themselves. I learned a lot from that, and
now that Raphael could obtain information directly from
the labyrinth, everything anyone did in there could be
examined in my research. Raphael ran Analyze and Assess
on all of it, so the Dungeon was turning into a treasure
trove of data for us.
Even better, just as our personal battle experience was
reflected in our avatars, the things we learned in avatar
form were retained in our original bodies. This was an
unexpected side effect, and I was considering how we could
use it on things like new types of training.
Our research was continuing on a daily basis, so I
suppose it’s only natural that we learned a lot.
One time—just one time, I promise—we got a little
carried away and decided to try conquering our own
labyrinth. The result: utter defeat.
With our current abilities, Bovix, boss of Floor 50, was
like crashing into a brick wall. The frontal approach we
preferred was useless against an over-A opponent like him.
The effectiveness of our surprise strikes would need to be
evaluated, but more than that, Bovix was just too much for
us. I was glad we could rely on him, but
,now we felt like we
had to beat him.
So we decided to get serious about building up our
characters. Again, strictly for research purposes. Research
—and training for ourselves, too. Definitely not for fun.
Make sure you don’t get the wrong idea here.
………
……
…
We watched as the fleeing challengers faded into the
distance. “That was an easy one,” I muttered. The other
three nodded.
We were on Floor 38 or so of the labyrinth, and given
how close we were to the tempest serpent, there were a lot
of strong fighters around—people who could give us a
tough fight if we didn’t pay attention. For our current state,
it was the perfect hunting ground.
Just as we were about to keep going, the Replication of
myself I kept in my office for emergency purposes
contacted me. What could that be? I thought as the
message EMERGENCY VISITOR flashed before my eyes.
I guess playtime was over. Wait, no—we weren’t playing.
This was research. Very important stuff. I reminded myself
of that as I returned to my office.
There I found Shuna and Rigurd waiting for me, as well as
someone else—a woman I knew well. It was the ex–demon
lord Frey, lounging in one of my chairs. I guess this was my
emergency visitor.
Seeing me enter the room, Frey walked right past
Veldora and rested her eyes upon Milim behind me. She
gave her a friendly smile.
“Ah, Milim! So you were here, were you? By the way,
have you finished up the assignment I gave you yet? I found
my watchmen bound and unconscious on the ground, but
you’ll tell me what happened to them, won’t you?”
The smile stayed on her face the whole time. This was
more an interrogation than a friendly question, I felt.
Frankly, it scared me. It wasn’t even directed at me, and I
still wanted to be anywhere but here. In fact, it was exactly
like when my school friend came over to play after finishing
his homework, only to have his mom find out he hadn’t
finished it at all, so she stormed over to drag him back by
the ear. Ah, nostalgia.
As for Milim herself:
“Gehh!! F-Frey?! N-no, um, I can explain everything…!!”
The moment their eyes met, Milim grew intensely
nervous.
Welp. Guess the party’s over for her. And lemme just
make it clear: We’ve got nothing to do with this. Okay?
“Ha, ha-ha-ha… Milim, if you had work to do, you should
have let me know, all right? I really shouldn’t keep you here
then, huh? Better head on back and get that work done!”
“Mmm,” rumbled Veldora, “Rimuru is right. Our
apologies for occupying you so long with our research. You
should have told us you had work to do. Sorry to drag you
along with us!”
“Y-yeah, yeah, that’s right! Boy, Milim, coulda said
something before we took you across kingdom come!”
Ramiris got the picture for me, too. Great job. See?
That’s the teamwork we’ve been building.
Now we’ve hopefully demonstrated that we knew
nothing and aren’t involved in any way. There were tears in
Milim’s eyes as she looked at me, but…well, sorry. I don’t
think I can save you here. Also, please don’t drag us into
this.
“N-no! F-Frey, listen to me!”
Milim tried to protest one final time, but Frey’s iron
smile sunk the effort. Resistance was futile. Milim was now
hers.
Picking her up by the scruff of her neck with her talons,
Frey fully neutralized her. With that, she dragged her all
the way back to her homeland.
Phew. That was scary. I thought we were all going
downtown there, but we made it through scot-free.
But just as I breathed a sigh of relief:
“By the way, Sir Rimuru, what have you been doing all
this time?” Shuna had appeared behind me without
warning, and she had a sharp question ready for me.
Sweat that I knew I physically couldn’t sweat seemed to
bead up on my forehead. No. I’m fine. This is fine. I wasn’t
playing this whole time. It was research! Yes! Research!
My resolve firmed, I decided to make excuses. But
before I could give it a shot, Veldora spoke.
“Hmm, I think we might be getting in your way here.
Allow me to continue my sorcery research back in my own
chambers. There is much deep knowledge even I may still
glean from it…”
He kept up his muttering as he took a volume of manga
out and turned around.
He’s running out on me?!
By the time that thought crossed my mind, it was already
too late.
“Oh, yeah, um, I think I’ll join him down there…”
Now even Ramiris was stabbing me in the back. They
both walked briskly out of the room, leaving me to rot. I
can’t believe them! Only at times like these did they
operate like a practiced team.
But I couldn’t dwell on my heartless friends. I had to
give a reason fast, or else Shuna’s rage would scare me to
death. A bad excuse would destroy me here—calling it
studying or research seemed a little weak to me.
As I watched Veldora and Ramiris leave, my brain cells
went into full operation, desperately seeking the best
response. Dammit. I couldn’t think of anything. But I didn’t
need to panic yet. If it’d come to this, I had one last resort.
It’s time to shine, Raphael!!
Nope. No need to fear. I had Raphael, a font of wisdom,
on my side. C’mon, I begged my friend. Give me a shining
excuse that’ll get me out of this.
And the result:
Understood. There is no need to make excuses. Just stand
your ground, and the problem will be resolved.
Huh? No need to make excuses?! What do you mean, just
stand my ground—?
“Oh, there you are, Sir Rimuru! I’ve been looking for
you!”
Just as I had that thought, my beloved Mjöllmile burst
inside, looking harried as usual. So that’s what it meant.
Talk about deus ex machina. Mollie, you’re a savior!
“Ah, hello, Mollie. I was expecting you here soon.”
Following Raphael’s advice, I stood my ground and acted
like I planned for all this. Mjöllmile gave me an odd look,
but then began nodding, seeing the wisdom of playing
along.
“Ah, glad to hear, Sir Rimuru. We’ve received a letter
from the Council, but have you had a chance to read it? It
was in a very tightly sealed envelope, so I’m wondering if
it’s a request to visit them so they can deliberate over our
admission…”
Huh? A letter from the Council? They wanted to hold a
conference to decide whether to let Tempest join them or
not?
So the moment had come at last. Really gotta hand it to
Professor Raphael, though. Did it realize the Council would
get to work right this moment for me? Ah, no way. Not even
it could—
Understood. Green Fury was hired by the Kingdom of
Englesia. Based on the timing involved, their primary goal
was clearly to investigate matters inside Tempest. Also,
according to a report from the subject Soei, agents from
multiple intelligence organizations were sending reports
back to their home nations at the same time. Putting this
together, it is very likely that moves were made over the
past several days.
Okay, maybe it could do it. It was just as the professor
calculated! But I didn’t remember hearing about any report
from Soei…
Understood. It is believed that my lord was too
preoccupied with his games to pay attention.
Don’t call it a game!
They say there’s no kidding yourself, but I guess there’s
no kidding Raphael, either. But it had a point. I was pretty
serious about matters up until we defeated Team Green
Fury, but after that, yeah, we were just having fun.
But Raphael definitely got me out of a jam there. Patting
myself on the back for not trying to come up with some
convoluted excuse, I tried to frame it like I knew everything
all along.
“Yes, I definitely think you’re right. Their investigation
teams were in the labyrinth as well, so I played along with
them for a bit. They all came hurrying back to their
homelands after a while, though, so I figured we’d see
some movements soon.”
“Oh! Are you talking about Green Fury, perhaps?”
“You got it, Mollie. They were a little too strong in my
mind, so I did some looking into them.”
That was a huge lie. I was just riffing on what Raphael
said. But that’s all right.
“I see, I see. Some secret investigations,
,eh? Very
impressive, Sir Rimuru!”
Shuna gave me a broad smile and a nod. Thanks to
standing my ground, I managed to pull the wool over
everyone’s eyes.
Now that the danger was past, I accepted the letter from
Mjöllmile and looked through it. It definitely was an
invitation from the Council. Raphael was proven right, and
I had just saved a ton of face.
But…man, that was close. Getting too caught up in
games always trips you up in the end. That was a valuable
lesson for me, and I’ll try to temper my Dungeon time going
forward. I’ll need to be more careful—all good things in
moderation, and so on.
The Council of the West is a league of nations dotted
around the Forest of Jura. Representatives from each of its
member nations gathered in Englesia every month for a
conference, the aim being to work things out for each
other’s mutual benefit in areas outside the jurisdiction of
any single country.
Each member nation, no matter how small, had an equal
say as they all deliberated together. The ideal here was to
protect the greater good for all humankind—the greater
good, in this case, meaning preservation of the human-
populated parts of the world.
The Council’s top priority was conducting anti-monster
measures, but they also dealt with droughts, pandemics,
typhoons, earthquakes, and other disasters. When it came
to the distribution of extra food and other goods between
nations, deliberations could often get mired in
intergovernmental differences, so for essential goods and
services, the Council stepped in to debate and organize
things instead. If famine broke out, they worked to provide
relief; if a large number of monsters appeared somewhere,
they could send extra soldiers to deal with them. This, of
course, was never easy—all sorts of problems cropped up
on a constant basis.
Funding for the Council was provided by its member
nations, each of which paid a different percentage of the
budget. Even though each nation paid differing dues to the
Council, they all had equal representation in the
conference itself. This created some dissatisfaction among
the members, so to address that, nations were allowed to
send more selected representatives to the Council based on
their share of the funding.
Of course, that opened up the possibility of throwing the
Council off-balance, so regulations stipulated that member
nations had to contribute a much larger percentage for
each extra councillor they added. Despite that, a country
sending more members inevitably meant they got to have a
larger say in matters. With that in mind, the larger nations
often paid several times the usual budget contribution so
they could send several councillors over.
As discussed, the Council’s activities had no direct
bearing on the interests of its member governments.
Despite that, it was still a good place for larger nations to
show off to the world. The more of a say they had in the
Council’s agenda, the better chance they ran of getting
favorable treatment when everything shook out. If danger
came along, they could apply pressure to make sure their
country was looked after first.
The funding received was used to conduct the Council’s
business, which was always decided by majority vote
among its representatives. For example, let’s say a
dangerous monster appeared somewhere. The Free Guild,
a lower branch of the Council, was tasked with dealing with
it, so the Council would send a formal request to deploy
adventurers to the area.
But of course, there might be more than one monster,
and they could be threatening more than one country. The
more powerful nations would likely act to procure stronger
adventurers for their own country first—that was a given.
Sending more funding to the Council indicated that you
were a more valuable presence among the Western
Nations. There was no point diverting limited resources to
protecting something useless. Countries with excess
capacity could help, but otherwise, they’d be shut out. That
was the reality of it—the weak were given the cold shoulder
on an equal basis from everyone, in a very cruel game of
numbers.
This was why being late with your share of contributions
was never allowed. The minimum contributions were
always collected, and anyone who couldn’t make the
payments was booted out of the Council. To the weaker
nations, that was a matter of life and death—it meant
nobody would help them if things went south. It was the
Council’s job to make those decisions as well, so it was a
given that countries with more councillors had a lot more
power in the group.
These contributions, of course, weren’t cheap. They
piled up based on the number of representatives you sent,
so even a superpower like Farmus could only send around
five, at most. The fall of Farmus was thus a huge event,
nothing the Council could afford to ignore. Between
figuring out how to handle the new Kingdom of Farminus
and addressing the rise of the troublesome Jura-Tempest
Federation, tensions were understandably high around the
Council right now.
After the Tempest Founder’s Festival, the Council held a
special session that quickly erupted into chaos, with
representatives yelling at one another until they were
hoarse. Hinata Sakaguchi attended as a guest of honor,
given her close relationship with the demon lord Rimuru.
She could have turned down the invite—unlike the Free
Guild, the Western Holy Church wasn’t a subgroup of the
Council. They were on friendly terms but existed as
completely different structures. As a leading figure in that
organization, Hinata had every right to ignore the
summons. But when she heard the Council’s subject matter,
she decided to join in. They were set to discuss Tempest’s
admission into the Council, a resolution that could greatly
affect the future direction of the Western Nations, and
considering that, Hinata couldn’t stay away.
The current chaotic disorder in the Council made her
wince a little.
When you collect a bunch of fools together, it’s not
surprising how little work gets done…
Hinata led all of her own meetings, keeping decision-
making as quick as possible without things falling too far
out of hand. A serious enough disagreement, after all, could
always be decided with battle—such was her philosophy.
And in the conferences in Tempest she attended, they
always managed to decide on vast, pondering matters, even
with all the big names that constantly seemed to join in. It
was hard for Hinata to comprehend—like something out of
a fairy tale.
But even if that’s a notable exception, she mused,
couldn’t this Council be a little more constructive?
To someone like Hinata, who mostly attended active,
useful meetings, the debate unfolding before her seemed
like nothing short of a farce.
“We can trust that nation! I feel we should exert all
efforts to welcome them as our friends.”
“You say that, but we are talking about a demon lord
here. Allegedly, he can negotiate with the Storm Dragon,
but if we anger him, what if he sets that menace on us?”
“No need to worry about that. I doubt this demon lord
has much power himself. He’s just leaning on his buddy to
posture against his foes.”
“Ridiculous! Then how do you explain the draw that he
and Lady Hinata here fought to? Because I think we should
appreciate this demon lord for the strength he’s clearly
shown!”
It was a never-ending torrent of unintelligent opinions
thrown against one another.
This is so stupid. How can they even keep this going in
my presence? Their thoughtlessness is astounding.
Hinata was right about that, and yet they were arguing
over whether the demon lord was a juggernaut or a
pushover. It certainly left an impression on her.
“Look. The demon lord Rimuru has declared that the
lands of the Forest of Jura are his territory. At the same
time, however, he stated at the Founder’s Festival that he
has no intention of sending monsters out to the forest’s
borders. This means a lot. Councillors,
,we need to consider
that as we work toward a conclusion!”
“Indeed. Our nation is home to a people living in
constant fear of monsters. The demon lord’s statement
provides salvation to them, and it is backed by fact as well.
Ever since the founding of Tempest, monster-related
incidents have been on a steady decline.”
“Nonsense! Has the demon lord deceived you?!”
The Forest of Jura’s monsters were managed by the
demon lord Rimuru. The nations nestled along its vast
border were already reaping the benefits. But whether a
nation bordered Tempest, was exposed to other threats, or
was located relatively safely inland, they all had different
motives driving them.
The border nations here were the most welcoming to
Rimuru’s reign. They had all participated in the Founder’s
Festival, getting a taste of Tempest’s prosperity for
themselves. Whether it was a nation of monsters or not,
they reasoned, if it could directly connect to their own
national interests, then bring it on.
Countries facing other threats, meanwhile, had trouble
deciding how to approach this. They had the Free Guild
and the Crusaders to protect them and deal with monster
damage; none of these nations were large in scale, and
none could afford to act carelessly here. They were all in
the same boat, largely, and they had their hands full staying
afloat as it was. The more quick-witted among their leaders
were already scheming to see how they could take
advantage of Tempest, but some of them skipped the
Founder’s Festival entirely and had no inherent trust of
monsters. The debate over Rimuru raged among these
nations, and no matter which side they went with, their
position was a pretty weak one.
Finally, the larger, safer nations (and the countries
dependent on them) were, as a rule, approving. They, of
course, had the luxury of tackling this question based on
how they stood to profit from it—security was not a concern
of theirs. They were countered by councillors who were
more skeptical about Rimuru’s policies. If something were
to happen, the demon lord might decide to place the full
brunt of his powers upon them—such was their blind belief,
and they were thus virulently opposed to him. Some were
already loudly accusing the Tempest border nations of
turning traitor and letting Rimuru brainwash them.
With all these clashing interests, it was a given that the
meeting would be a rowdy one. From the perspective of a
higher power, it was all the work of fools—but most of the
representatives were just looking out for number one.
Hinata knew that, which was why she could stay silent.
“All right. Why don’t we accept their argument? If they
say Tempest will be our friend, then let’s welcome them in.
But they’ll need to bring some gifts with them.”
“I firmly agree. Try to fight them, and we’ll just have
another Farmus on our hands.”
“They’ll need to learn their place, though. Do we even
know if they have any interest in respecting the
international laws we’ve put in place?”
“I don’t think we need to worry about that. You’ve heard
the rumors about Duke Meusé’s folly, I trust?”
“How could anyone not have?”
The real bottleneck was due to the representatives from
the rich nations. They were well-informed to start with, and
they were deliberately trying to stir the pot here,
encouraging the chaos. Their objective was clear—they
already made their conclusion, and now they wanted to
guide everyone else toward it without seeming too
unnatural.
I feel for the smaller nations’ representatives. They were
oblivious when they came here, and now they’re faced with
a choice. They may as well throw their vote down the
drain…
Ignorance really is a sin. Without the correct
information, you stood to lose a vast amount. And now the
weak were being hounded into letting their precious vote
go to waste.
Still…
But I suppose this is all leading up to Tempest getting
accepted. Which is fine by me, but…
The larger nations shared the same motives as Hinata. It
was a pity about the citizens of the weaker countries, but
as she saw it, better to keep her mouth shut about this. She
did need to resist the urge to speak up, though.
“The demon lord Rimuru’s motives here don’t really
matter. The question is whether we can make good use of
him or not.”
“Precisely. Given our present concern about the East’s
movements, there’s no reason to turn down a demon lord’s
power if he allies with us.”
Prince Johann Rostia, one of the senior representatives
in the Council, was now bringing up the Eastern Empire.
“The East, you say? Meaning the Empire?!”
“There are movements? But Veldora is right next to us,
in the Forest of Jura…”
Johann’s statement caused a stir among the Council.
Now, Hinata thought, we’re getting down to business. The
preamble went on far too long, but that’s nobles for you.
They were feeling one another out, gauging how much
information each side had on them. Once they were sure
their side had the upper hand, that’s when they bared their
fangs. That was their style, just as Johann showed when he
so expertly seized the initiative.
“As I’m sure you’re all aware, the military of the Eastern
Empire—namely, the Nasca Namrium Ulmeria United
Eastern Empire—has begun making certain maneuvers.
According to reports from passing merchants, they’ve been
conducting military exercises at a higher rate than before.”
The Council fell silent at Johann’s words.
Hinata was aware of that, as were Gazel Dwargo and the
heads of the other nations bordering the Empire. They
probably kept tabs on the Empire through the sales of their
healing potions and equipment. Since the Dwarven
Kingdom was officially neutral, Gazel was no doubt
following his obligations to keep what he knew confidential.
Plus, Rimuru undoubtedly knew as well. The proof was in
the tech announcements he made at the Founder’s Festival.
Rimuru insisted that “no, no, that was really all Gabil’s and
Vester’s own work” and so on, but that was a barefaced lie.
He had to be involved, too, and he meant his statement as a
threat against Gazel… Not a threat exactly, perhaps, but it
was Rimuru’s way of saying Hey, Tempest is making the
potions now.
You can never underestimate him. He knows what’s
going on in the East, and he’s needling Gazel about keeping
quiet. How far ahead is he looking? It’s just amazing to
me…
Thus, whether he knew it or not, Rimuru was being
vastly misunderstood by Hinata here in Englesia.
Now, while all of this might’ve been known information
to Hinata, it was shocking news to the majority of
councillors here. Everyone sat on the edge of their seats,
waiting for more from Johann; they needed as much
information as they could as they debated how to protect
themselves. Nations rich enough to have regular armies
were one thing, but the smaller ones didn’t even have the
free budget to retain one of those. Small-scale was the
watchword with their militaries; they preferred to hire
mercenaries at times of war, but if the whole region was
building up their firepower, they’d be facing pretty slim
pickings.
“Everyone,” Johann said in a voice that carried well
across the chamber, “calm down. I’m not saying the Empire
will make their move at once. Let us keep our heads cool
and debate how to respond!”
Just as Hinata thought, this was the real topic of the day.
“And what will we do?” one representative asked,
followed by many others.
“How to respond?! What measures do we even have
against them?!”
“The Kingdom of Farmus is gone! Even if we wanted to
build a defensive line, we can’t do that with just us smaller
nations!”
“Order, please! The Empire isn’t on the move because of
you-know-who in the Forest of Jura. I wouldn’t be as
assured if he was still sealed away, but now he’s alive and
active for us!”
“Wait one moment! You want us to pin our hopes on that
evil dragon…?”
“Please, I’m telling you, calm down! Right now, if the
news is to be trusted, Veldora has been tamed
,Magus outside
the country, he assigns two of them to guard his own
daughter? Erald’s such an overprotective father.
“Really? But they didn’t look like anything impressive to
me…?”
When I ran Analyze and Assess on Kabal and Gido
before, they seemed unremarkable in terms of strength.
But when I asked about it, Erald just frowned.
“This is also confidential, but fair enough. Their abilities
are actually being restricted by the magical rings on their
fingers. Their restraints are lifted only when Elen is in truly,
truly mortal danger.”
That was kind of a surprise. So Thalion’s magical tech
was a level beyond what Analyze and Assess told me? That
said, my Analysis skills back then were a far cry from the
accuracy I enjoyed now. Maybe I’d notice the concealment
this time around. For that matter, maybe I should stop
resting on my laurels just because I analyze something
once. Next time I see those guys, they’re definitely being
scanned again.
“Please take good care of my daughter, then.”
“Okay! See you later!”
With that, Elmesia and her crew headed back for
Thalion, riding a ship pulled by a Dragon Lord for
protection.
By comparison, the demon lord Luminus had it easy.
With her vast magical force, she could cast Spatial Motion
as much as she wanted, so she just poofed her way back
home. Apparently, she’d contact me later about the
musician exchange we talked about.
Hinata, meanwhile, was still in town, watching the kids
study at our church and helping out with battle training.
Right now, we had no really suitable teacher for those
children. Hinata had been busy keeping the peace in the
Western Nations with her paladins, but now we’d be
helping out with that, taking over the southern portions,
and that opened some time in her schedule.
“If you like, would you mind helping the kids a little? I’m
good with magic and everything, but I’m not so hot at
teaching.”
“Sure. This town’s been added to my list of Warp Portal
destinations, so I can watch them when I’m free.”
She gladly accepted the offer, and believe me, I was
elated.
I never had any intention of giving the children back,
really. Now that I had my concerns about Yuuki, I figured
it’d be better to keep them away from the Kingdom of
Englesia for a bit. That’s why I brought them over to
Tempest, and luckily, the festival was a good excuse for
that.
Their school transfer had already been arranged, which
was a blessing in disguise, since it was getting hard to
provide much guidance for them in Englesia’s academy.
Now that I had Combined them with their elemental spirits,
they had grown to be pretty darn strong. They were too
much for any normal teacher, and it was about time they
had a real instructor watching them.
Yuuki himself mentioned that paladins were a good
match for spirits. I kind of inadvertently turned the
conversation toward the spirits as we spoke, but looking
back, he must’ve known about my plans from the start. I
think I was intending to keep that a secret—
Report. You were keeping it a secret.
Y-yeah, I sure was.
And my blabbing it seemed to have rankled Raphael a
bit.
I mean, c’mon, it was gonna come out either way. You’re
focusing on that too much. No need to get too worried
about it.
……
Right. Sorry. I had already heard some disquieting things
about Yuuki, but I blurted it out anyway. Maybe part of me
really wanted to believe him. But I made him privy to
things he didn’t need to know about, and I regretted it now.
I’d need to be more careful next time.
Thus, I would be taking responsibility for the children’s
care—and given the situation, Hinata’s assistance was a
godsend. Through the festival, the kids had really taken a
shine to Hinata, and I had no problem with her taking the
job. But Hinata as a teacher, huh? Maybe I should join the
class, then.
So I was seated alongside the rest of the kids as Hinata
coldly glared at me.
“What are you doing here?”
“Oh, you know, just observing…”
“Well, you’re in the way. Go.”
“Um, okay…”
And so I was unceremoniously kicked out of school. A
real shame.
In the midst of all this, we’d been all wrapped up from
the festival for about a week’s time. Things were calmer on
the streets again, and the townspeople now had more time
on their hands.
So I decided to perform our test launch of the Dungeon
now that we had finished fine-tuning it. More than a few
adventurers were excited about exploring it; we had
already gotten a large number of requests, and I wasn’t
about to disappoint them.
It was the start of a busier time than ever for me.
………
……
…
On the first day of our Dungeon’s soft opening, problems
erupted after only a few hours. It turned out that the
challengers were a lot more inept at tackling it than I
thought. This was something I predicted when we first
revealed the Dungeon at the Founder’s Festival, hence why
we lowered the difficulty level. But everyone was taking so
much time advancing through the chambers—making me
realize that something needed to be done soon.
There were no traps in the first floor. Any naturally
occurring monsters who might show up were ranked F at
the most—total wimps with no real fighting skills, creatures
your average villager on the street could pummel. I
designed it to help people get used to the labyrinth’s
atmosphere, so all it really contained were rooms with
treasure chests and monsters guarding them. But I had
already removed the traps Ramiris set up, so if you wanted
to reach the next floor, you couldn’t count on a handy pit
trap taking you there—you needed to make a map.
Even with everything involved, I figured the first floor
could be conquered in a day of holing up in there at the
most, no matter how slow you were. But in the past three
days, the number of parties that made it to Floor 2 was zip.
Even Basson’s team gave up after getting hopelessly lost on
the first floor—they had already experienced just how big
the labyrinth was, but I guess they didn’t bother taking any
measures against it.
It was really just exasperating, but if anything, Basson
was on the more decent side. Some of the parties were
getting killed by the D-ranked monsters I had as room
guardians. In fact, not some—a lot. The common theme was
people lured by the treasure failing to notice the guardian
creatures lining the rooms. I bet even the skeletal archers I
had in there were surprised. They had all these
adventurers sprinting toward the chests, giving them the
chance to shoot them in the backs over and over again.
We’re talking a complete lack of fundamentals. No risk
management. But at least those fools were smart enough to
form groups. Because just when you think you’ve run into
the biggest idiot, another one comes along to show that
you’re nowhere near rock bottom yet. Yes, some were even
tackling the whole Dungeon solo. That’s beyond reckless
and well into the realm of hopeless.
You wouldn’t encounter too many monsters on Floor 1;
as mentioned, random encounters were restricted to F
ranks only. But even F-ranked monsters could be a threat if
you had a big enough group of them. I guess. I mean, I
wasn’t entirely sure about that, but to them, they were a
threat.
Seriously, if you’re tackling this solo, even finding a
place to rest was a challenge. Nobody was keeping guard
for you. You’d have no chance to get some shut-eye. And
even an F ranker wasn’t completely helpless. Some of them
weren’t shy about attacking sleeping humans, so letting
your guard down spelled death. I wondered if the solo
questers had some ingenious scheme to handle this, but no
—I don’t think they really thought it through at all. It was
hopeless, and they all were whisked out of the Dungeon
without anything to show for it.
Clearly, at this rate, they’d never be able to survive the
deeper levels. Floor 2 saw more random encounters in the
corridors, including E-ranked monsters. By the time you
make it past Floor 5, I think you’d be seeing D rank,
,by Sir
Rimuru, the demon lord. The very same demon lord who
seeks admission to our Council, am I right? Then I think the
answer is clear.”
The man calling for order was Count Gaban, a
representative from Englesia.
“Councillor Gaban is right,” Johann continued. “As we
face this threat from the East, now is no time to wage a war
of words against each other. If the demon lord Rimuru will
join the Council, I am sure their military might will aid us.”
“Ah…”
“Certainly, yes…”
Cheers of agreement rang out. Johann smiled
approvingly.
“In my humble opinion, I think we should recognize
Tempest as a full-fledged member.”
His voice was solemn, as if gauging the reaction around
him. That alone changed the atmosphere in the chamber.
Even those who feared the demon lord as a complete
unknown now recalled the very real and recognized threat
from the East. Tempest was a land of monsters but also a
nation that responded to common sense. The Empire, on
the other hand, was a ravenous foe bent on gobbling up
everything in its path. They were a human enemy, and as
such, if they lost to the Empire, everyone could see that
they’d be next at the dinner table.
The ruling class, all of them, would undoubtedly be
killed.
The Empire was a massive military state, with a history
of growth powered by the nations they swallowed up. They
were always thorough with their enemy, and to the Western
Nations, they were a presence to be feared.
“Hmm. I think Councillor Rostia is making a valid point.
A point I agree with, I should add.”
“I’m very glad you understand, Councillor Gaban! And I
think you won’t be alone in this chamber. I think it’s time to
take a vote on Tempest’s admission first, but what do you
think?”
“Seconded. The West needs to put up a united front
before anything else.”
“Quite true. Now’s no time for infighting!”
Several representatives voiced their approval of Johann.
It led to a general commotion that forced the chairman to
shout for quiet once more.
At the chairman’s lead, the vote began. First Johann
fanned everyone’s fears; then he put on the pressure to
conform. A very impressive performance, indeed, in the
classic style of nobility.
I suppose this is all part of the script, too? Even without
the preamble, that took forever…
Clearly Johann and Gaban were colluding on this, with a
supporting cast voicing their agreement in the audience. As
a nonvoting attendee, Hinata could tell that much from her
seat. It was all just a scripted performance, and the ending
was coming up shortly, much to her relief. Eight hours had
passed since the session was brought to order, and despite
the regular breaks, the exhaustion was palpable. Not
physical exhaustion, of course, but the mental kind, making
it all the more painful to Hinata.
I can’t believe all the stupid questions I got asked,
though. They could’ve just asked me to watch Rimuru to
make sure he doesn’t go crazy, but no…
That was the main reason Hinata was there. Whether the
Council knew him or not, they were about to ask a demon
lord to join their ranks. They just wanted to cover their
asses in case he decided to get violent—and considering
she (reportedly) fought him to a draw, Hinata helped the
councillors feel far safer. That’s basically what the nobles
wanted, although they asked her in the most roundabout
way possible.
The talk about an Empire on the move was just an idle
threat as well. Those military maneuvers probably were
happening, but they were just an empty show of force. If
they were really about to invade the West, they had
mountains of obstacles to deal with first—the Forest of Jura
and the Armed Nation of Dwargon, to name but two. And
maybe things would’ve been different before Tempest and
Dwargon forged an alliance, but now, the Empire didn’t
have much to work with.
They really should’ve made their move before Rimuru
became a demon lord. Then Veldora wouldn’t be back in
the picture, and the Empire really could’ve had a chance at
world domination…
Now the Empire was pinned down, too afraid of a
vengeful, unmuzzled Veldora to act. They were too careful
for their own good back when there was no sign of Veldora,
and now they probably knew full well the golden
opportunity they missed. Rimuru and Gazel were still on
the lookout for them, of course, but the way Hinata saw it,
any move the Empire could make was nothing for anyone to
worry about.
She was pretty sure Johann and Gaban agreed with her
on that point. Here they were, keeping the smaller nations’
eyes fixated on outside threats while they firmed up their
own footing. It was so noble-like of them. Hinata had had
enough of it long ago.
And after the ballots were tabulated, the ayes had it—the
majority of the counted had voted to admit Tempest.
“The Jura-Tempest Federation is now officially our ally.
We will hereby send a formal invitation to the Jura-Tempest
Federation, and after confirming the intentions of their
leader, the demon lord Rimuru, to join the Council, we will
reconvene to enact the relevant procedures. Adjourned!”
With the chairman’s stentorian declaration, the meeting
drew to a close. All in all, it was enough to make Hinata
swear off dealing with the nobility again.
The exhausting Council session was over, and Hinata was
on her way back to the Church. But her suffering wasn’t
over yet.
“Hinata, could I have a moment of your time?”
She was stopped by a young man guarded by a posse of
nearly ten bodyguards. He had shiny blond hair and a
refreshing smile; a handsome man, although not much
Hinata’s type. After eight hours of that torture session, her
tolerance for anything else today was gone. She just
wanted to get home, and the smile of a man she had no
interest in was worthless to her.
Unfortunately, the man’s social position posed some
difficulties for Hinata’s escape. This was Elrick, the first
prince of Englesia, where the Council’s headquarters was
located. Being rude to him could trigger an international
incident, so Hinata was in no position to ignore him.
“Yes? Can I help you?”
She summoned as much social courtesy as she could
muster for Prince Elrick. He smugly smiled back at her.
“Well, Hinata, I wanted to ask you a favor.”
Elrick did not know Hinata well enough to address her
this casually. Given her position, she knew his name and
face, but little else. This was their first conversation, and
Elrick’s overfamiliarity annoyed her.
“And what would that be?” she asked as they moved over
to a reception room.
“I’m thinking about testing the demon lord Rimuru at the
next Council meeting. Only the upper echelons are aware
of the news as of yet, but if a demon lord is joining the
Council, I think that would greatly unnerve many of our
people. We will need this demon lord to live up to his
duties, and we need to see whether he will deign to listen
to us. That’s where you come in!”
He flashed her another gleaming smile. Hinata wanted
to jump out a window.
“How do I come in?” she asked, dying for him to get to
the point.
“…?!”
Elrick, perhaps expecting Hinata to be a bit more
cooperative, seemed daunted by her lack of interest. Still,
he tried to look unaffected as he continued.
“W-well, let me explain. I describe it as a test, but the
one in question is still a demon lord. If he decides to cause
a scene, we’ll all be in trouble. So I’d like to ask you to
provide security duties for us.”
As prince, Elrick no doubt expected the entire world to
serve him at all times. He knew he had good looks, and he
was convinced no woman could ever turn him down.
Hinata, he was sure, would be no different. Even his
bodyguards looked on like this was common knowledge.
But Hinata had her doubts. For one thing, she had every
right to turn him down.
Did he think I’d say yes with that attitude?
“Why, if I may ask?”
“Why? Because I know you are a strong woman. The
most powerful leader of the paladins, confidant to the
Luminian god, the chief
,knight of the Imperial Guard itself!
Among the Western Nations, you truly have no equal, and I
even hear that you fought the demon lord Rimuru to a
draw. With your support, I’m sure we can reveal the true
nature of this demon lord!”
His sheer arrogance was clear for Hinata to see as he
heaped extensive praise upon her.
What is he talking about?
Rimuru was generally kind to her, but he was a true-blue
demon lord. Deliberately trying to rile him was beyond
stupid. And that “fought to the draw” thing was a rumor
they deliberately spread around; she couldn’t beat him at
all. If Rimuru ever got really angry, it’d take a fellow demon
lord like Luminus to stop him.
“I think that idea may be ill-advised. He is truly a
powerful demon lord. If we were to fight again, there is no
guarantee I could beat him.”
“Oh, come now! No need for modesty. Just because
you’re talking to me doesn’t mean you have to act like a
meek, gentle woman.”
The smile was now gone from Hinata’s face. Elrick’s self-
absorbed protest deeply peeved her.
The oblivious prince was interrupted by one of his
bodyguards stepping in. This large, important-looking man
was Reiner, head general of Englesia’s royal knight corps—
and Reiner was about to rankle Hinata even further.
“Ha-ha-ha! Lady Hinata, I can understand if you’re
smitten with Prince Elrick, but now is no time for such
dalliances. There’s no need to worry about matters if I’m
around, but with your additional muscle, we will have that
much extra insurance. So if you could—”
The chiding tone to his voice robbed Hinata of any desire
to hear the rest.
“I’m afraid I cannot. The Western Holy Church and the
Holy Empire of Lubelius have signed a nonaggression pact
with Tempest. And a word of warning as well… Please
refrain from angering the demon lord Rimuru.”
“…Pardon me?”
“Are—are you ordering me around?!”
The bodyguard, along with Elrick, seemed flummoxed by
the idea that she’d actually say no to them.
Hinata had absolutely no intention of playing along. If
this was an official request made through the proper
channels, not even Hinata would’ve had the right to refuse.
If the Council was making the request themselves, after all,
it’d only be logical to call for an anti-monster specialist like
her. Given the Council’s vital role in world affairs, there
could very well have been an official request along those
lines, once it passed through the local Western Holy Church
post. And considering their future relationship with the
Western Nations, Hinata wouldn’t have had the final right
to turn that down.
What a pain it would have been, though…
Still, if that happened, there would’ve been a lot of
intricate conditions to decide on, and given how their
nonaggression pact forbade clearly hostile acts, Hinata
probably could’ve found a way out of it. Elrick and his
goons must’ve tried approaching her directly to skip all
that…and now they were paying for it.
“You will regret this, Lady Hinata! Do you wish to make
an enemy out of Sir Reiner, head general of the Englesia
royal knight corps?”
“Exactly! The human race cannot allow a demon lord to
do whatever he wants among us. Don’t tell me the Western
Holy Church is fine with someone like him going on a
rampage inside the Council!”
The other bodyguards were starting to whine at her, too
—but that actually relieved Hinata. From them, she could
tell this was all just a few people stepping way out of line.
“Unfortunately for you, I’m afraid the demon lord
Rimuru enjoys my full trust. Now if you’ll excuse me…”
So she left, thanking her lucky stars that this entourage
lacked intelligence. In her eyes, she had exhibited the
barest minimum of decorum needed, so this shouldn’t
become any sort of diplomatic controversy. Making this
unscheduled approach to a Council invitee was a much
ruder thing to do anyway. Even if a prince was involved,
Hinata handled it passably well, if not exactly with perfect
poise.
But—
They’re not really going to try to anger Rimuru, are
they?
The anxiety bounced around her mind. The moment she
swore off nobles forever, this had to happen.
Well, I turned down any involvement in it. Hopefully,
cooler heads will prevail among them…
If you wanted to take on a demon lord, you’d better have
had the national army backing you up. If a small group of
them tried to pick a fight, it really would take a party of
champions to save your ass—and they wouldn’t have the
time to prepare like that. A demon lord on the Council floor
was probably an opportunity too good for them to pass up,
but having an unexpected event to take advantage of didn’t
automatically up your success rate.
But what if this entire encounter was planned from the
start?
That…seems pretty unlikely. But I better keep my guard
up next time…
The thought was depressing her already.
With the invite in hand, I was now here in Englesia.
I guess they were giving me the royal treatment,
because I was lodged in the fanciest hotel they had. Once
this meeting was over, I looked forward to checking out the
capital for the first time in a while.
Benimaru was dauntlessly guarding me, with Soei
receiving reports from his spies in the shadows. Speaking
of shadows, I was starting to miss Ranga’s presence in
mine; he was out hanging with Gobta often these days.
Gobta had fully rebounded from Milim’s grueling training,
but I guess he didn’t have much time to rest. Milim had
apparently declared that she was going to test him
regularly from now on—with a string of real-battle
competitions against Carillon. He came crying to Ranga,
wailing about how he’d be killed at this rate, so I guess
Ranga felt obliged to come join him…but judging by his
wagging tail, I supposed he liked Gobta a fair bit. Nothing
wrong with building a friendship.
So I officially brought Benimaru and Shuna along with
me. A larger group would’ve presented lots of problems, so
I decided to keep it small and simple. I was thinking about
taking Shion as well, but I was still ever so slightly
concerned about unleashing Shion in a big city. If she
messed something up like she usually did, it could lead to
all sorts of disasters, so I had her focus on educating her
staff and keeping things orderly for me.
Geld was too busy directing the construction of Milim’s
new capital to get away from that. Diablo was still off on his
epic journey wherever—he talked about the protégés he’d
round up, but was he struggling with it? Because the
production of his body vessels was proceeding along well—
I wanted that wrapped up before he returned, so really,
there was no need for him to hurry things along. I’m sure
he’d zoom right back if I called for him, but I didn’t have
any pressing work for him, so no reason not to give him
some free time.
Hakuro was off with Momiji to the land of the tengu.
Gabil was out with Middray visiting the City of the
Forgotten Dragon—it was home to a flock of wyverns,
apparently, and he intended to capture some and attempt
to domesticate them. Building Team Hiryu into a stronger
fighting force had been on Gabil’s mind for a while. As part
of that effort, he decided to try building a flying squadron
with wyverns as mounts. It was easy to forget given his
newfound career as a scientist and researcher, but Gabil
was still a powerful warrior beloved by his followers. I
think he was on to something with that idea—if he made it
work, I’d need to amply praise him for it.
Thus, the rest of my top-level staff were busy with other
matters, so it was just two others and I who went to
Englesia, meeting up with Soei there.
Our first visit was to some clothing stores, lined with the
kind of show windows you’d find in modern Japan. In much
the same way, a lot of passers-by liked looking at them,
indicating just how much of a city the Englesian capital had
become. The window in this particular shop also seemed
astoundingly tall to me—glass was a fairly common thing to
see around
,here, but panes this size could cost as much as
a small house by themselves. If the shop was using these
for display purposes, they must’ve been doing a damn good
business. As Mjöllmile advised: Look at the flow of people,
and you can see they made the right choices.
By the way, our town had show windows like this as well.
When I told everyone what I saw in Englesia, Shuna and
our other female staff demonstrated a keen interest in
adopting that custom. I had no reason to turn them down,
so after discussing it with Mildo, I had him work on
manufacturing glass for me. We had a valued partner in
Raphael, so it didn’t take long at all to produce practical
show windows.
Regardless, we were clothes shopping at Shuna’s
request. She was curiously peering at all the new fashions
in those windows right now, and I have to say, it was all
pretty gaudy. In the stores we passed, there were lots of
outfits with novel designs we never saw back home. The
clothes Shuna and her team sewed, after all, were mostly
ensembles gleaned from my own memory, but these shops
were full of original pieces from entrepreneurial designers.
They all seemed to compete with one another on the racks,
and the sight was more than enough to capture Shuna’s
heart.
“I certainly don’t want to lose out to all this,” she
whispered, resolute. “I must redouble my efforts…!”
“Yeah, keep up the good work! And, everyone, go ahead
and select whatever you like. I’ll cover the cost.”
“What?! Are—are you sure?”
“Me too?”
“…I’ll keep this on, thank you.”
“It’s fine, it’s fine! I don’t pay you a salary anyway, so at
least let me be generous with this.”
As thanks for their usual hard work, I decided to give all
three of them new clothes. I had a suit along with me for
tomorrow’s conference, but Benimaru and Soei were still in
full battle gear. They fit in with the adventurers milling
around town, so nobody brought it up, but on the streets,
they were too imposing for my tastes. Shuna was in her
usual shrine-maiden garb as well, and I think some
fashionable casual wear would do her some good.
So I had them pick out their favorites.
Benimaru and Soei went with tailored jackets, shirts,
and skinny jeans—Huh? All right. It looked good on them.
And Shuna went with—Whoa! A fluffy white gaucho skirt
and an ice-blue knit vest? Cute! That really worked on her!
“That looks good. I like it, Shuna!”
“Thank you very much! I’m glad to hear that, Sir
Rimuru.”
Yep. The shrine outfit is fine and all, but something
casual wouldn’t hurt her, either. It’s also novel on her—
fresh, if you will.
Since we were there and all, I decided to purchase
several outfits. We’d no doubt use these as models to sew
our own, starting next time. I also purchased a thin, dark-
blue dress for Shion as a souvenir. She’s got kind of a cool
demeanor—in terms of looks anyway—so I figured she’d
stand out in that.
“I’m sure she’ll love it!”
“You think so?”
Glad to hear that.
“Yes, I’m positive.” If Shuna said so, it was probably
true.
“And you guys look okay in that, too, so go ahead and
take it.”
“Not as much guidance for us, huh?”
“…No.”
Benimaru and Soei sounded like they had complaints,
but who knows? And why were they still trying on outfits?
They acted like they didn’t care, but now they were diving
deep into the racks. A handsome man looks good in
anything, so I really didn’t think they needed to agonize
over their decisions that much…
Meanwhile, all my decisions were snap judgments. It
wasn’t like I could describe the difference between one
ensemble or the other, so I had the store clerks pick for me.
Couldn’t go wrong with that, I figured.
Finally, we made our selections. We were fitted for them
on-site, which let us change right into them.
Shuna was now lovingly clutching the box of clothes I
got for her, smiling broadly. Unlike my disappointing
secretary Shion, Shuna pretty much always had it together
—the gap between them was charming like that. Benimaru
and Soei looked happy about their own clothes, too, so I’d
call this outing a success. They pretty much worked day
and night, so I really wanted to thank them somehow. If
this excited them that much, I thought as I settled the bill, I
should’ve taken them here sooner.
After changing into new clothes, we headed for the café
our old friend Yoshida used to run. A trainee of his had
taken it over, and it was doing a pretty decent business—
and since we were one of their suppliers, we were allowed
to make purchases at a discount. We were scheduled to
meet Hinata there, whom we heard had arrived in Englesia
before us; I figured we could enjoy my first Englesian lunch
in a while as we talked over tomorrow’s conference.
As we waited for her, I let Soei give me a briefing. He
had his feelers all over the Western Nations, so I figured
he’d know why they chose this timing for the invite.
“All right, Soei, your report?”
“Certainly. First, I’d like to start with some of the
feedback from the Founder’s Festival…”
He gave me a rundown of the more important rumors
and discussions he had picked up from across the land, in
an easy-to-grasp fashion. I appreciated that.
The response to the Founder’s Festival was pretty
positive. From the royalty up top to the farmers at the
bottom, people talked about it all over the place. The
Dungeon was also generating tons of buzz—our ad pitch to
the nobility must’ve worked, because a few of them were
forming teams of challengers to conquer the Dungeon.
Even people from faraway lands, not just the border
nations, were reportedly curious. At this rate, I thought we
could expect even more customers soon.
After that pleasant news, we got down to business.
“So did you investigate the merchants—and who’s
behind Duke Meusé?”
“I did not neglect that, Sir Rimuru. From the merchants’
families to their business relations, I conducted a thorough
investigation. Based on that, I did not find any connections
to particularly suspicious figures. However, these
merchants did go through several government
intermediaries in order to obtain business licenses in the
nations they work in, and when I traced these officials, I
found they all had connections to Duke Meusé.”
So…what’d that mean?
Understood. The merchants were likely doing the bidding
of the subject Meusé.
All right. So there’s probably not much point
investigating those guys further.
What about Meusé, then? I guess there really is some
kind of secret cabal running the Western Nations, and they
might be scheming something new right now, as we speak.
Meusé seems like a competent enough noble. We better
keep him under surveillance.
“So Meusé did a good job covering his tracks, huh?
What’s that potential threat up to now?”
As competent as he might be, though, there was no
escaping Soei’s eyes. No matter what kind of seedy group
he tried to buddy up with, it’d only serve us in catching him
red-handed. But Soei quickly banished that thought from
my mind.
“He’s dead, Sir Rimuru.”
“Huh?”
“We believe he was felled by some manner of long-range
attack.”
As the duke of Ghastone, Meusé was something of a big
shot. If someone like him was murdered, I really was
starting to wonder about this mystery cabal. And if this was
that cabal’s way of escaping capture, they must have a lot
of power to work with.
Report. There is the possibility that they have noticed the
subject Soei’s investigations.
So they shut him up, huh? Maybe we should give this
adversary the respect they deserved. They weren’t playing
around.
“And you didn’t see who did it?” Benimaru asked.
“No,” Soei flatly replied. “I didn’t detect any presence at
all until Meusé fell to the ground in front of me.”
He only heard the sound of Meusé collapsing, so there
wasn’t a whole lot he could do to stop anything. He
sounded despondent about it, and I couldn’t do much apart
from console him.
“That’s pretty unbelievable. If not even you could spot
them, they must’ve been
,attacking from thousands of feet
away. You would’ve detected the magic if they used any,
and if it was some flying projectile, you would’ve picked up
the lingering aura from that, right?”
It really couldn’t be that easy to hoodwink him. I’ve got
Raphael with me, of course, so Magic Sense lets me detect
pretty much anything. But this…?
“Maybe it was a sniper, huh?”
“A sniper?”
“What is that?”
Ah. Not a concept Benimaru or Soei were aware of.
Shuna gave me a curious look as well, and I suppose I
could see why. This world didn’t have guns…but then,
would it be so unusual for an otherworlder to have one?
“You said a gun? I’m pretty sure Yuuki has a handgun.”
“Wha?!”
The sudden voice from behind almost made me fall out of
my chair. It was Hinata, sneaking up in an attempt to
startle me. Benimaru laughed in my face. Even Soei was
stifling a chuckle, a hand covering his mouth. I looked so
dumb.
“Come on, my brother! And you too, Soei!”
Shuna, thankfully, yelled at them on my behalf, so I
resisted the urge to speak up. And, I mean, if Raphael
would’ve been kind enough to say something to me—
Report. No malicious intent was detected.
…Yeah, I bet. So it’s my fault for acting all haughty, like
always. I sighed at myself and played it off with a chuckle.
With Hinata at the table, we all ordered lunch. For one
silver coin a pop, we got a pretty fancy spread, and we
avoided any serious conversation as we enjoyed it.
Full and satisfied, I decided to order some coffee—a little
mature bitterness to round things out. And with enough
sugar and milk, I had the perfect harmony between bitter
and sweet—
“That’s pretty much a café au lait, now, isn’t it? I’d call
you mature if you took it black, but that’s liquid candy
you’re drinking.” Hinata hit me back hard. I guess my
inside voice had leaked out again.
“Will you shut up? This is fine! It’s all part of the
atmosphere!”
“Oh? Because between that and your outfit, there’s
nothing ‘mature’ about what I’m seeing at all.”
Oof. First the coffee and now my clothing? And… Boy, is
that really how I look? The clerk at that shop arranged
what I thought was a neat poncho-type thing. I thought it
was…yeah, maybe a little on the young ’n’ springy side, but
I trusted the staff there. And now look… I regretted ever
trusting in a store employee’s fashion sense.
“Dammit! This does seem like kids’ wear, doesn’t it?”
“No, no, Sir Rimuru, it’s lovely on you!”
“R-right. Yeah. Looks great.”
“I thought you liked it.”
It’s “lovely” on me? So I look like a kid to them?! Man.
What a shock.
My clothes were comfortable, at least. I didn’t dislike
them. But that’s not the issue. I’m supposed to be high
society, you know? I had even grown a bit lately, enough
that I could probably pass for a middle schooler.
“It makes you look cute. Those are the facts. Give it up.”
My shoulders slumped at Hinata’s verdict. I guess I’d
have to. I don’t have the slightest amount of adult charm. I
already am grown-up! Why do I have to be obsessed with
my height at this point in life? Maybe I’m just gonna have
to face reality soon…
Hinata, meanwhile, wasn’t as brightly dressed as she
was at the festival. She was looking smart in her paladin
uniform, a dignified beauty in an outfit usually meant as
menswear. Maybe she and I should swap looks? I resisted
the urge to verbalize that thought, still a bit peeved as I
went back to our first subject.
With all due respect to the late Duke Meusé, we needed
to discuss the method of his murder.
“So if there are handguns around, do you think a sniper
did it?”
“I don’t know much about guns, but a handgun’s range
doesn’t go beyond fifty yards or so, does it?” said Hinata.
Hmm. Maybe. So we’d need something like a rifle.
“Are there sniper rifles in this world or anything?”
“I couldn’t tell you. I’ve certainly never seen one, but I
can’t guarantee there aren’t.”
Right. But maybe it’s better, for now, to assume there
were and act based on that. I decided to send a Thought
Communication to Benimaru and the others to describe the
kind of rifle I was envisioning.
“Hmm… Interesting weapon.”
“Yes, if someone used that, I can understand why I didn’t
detect it.”
“I think I could handle this weapon well enough. We can
mix up the required gunpowder, and I imagine Dold would
be able to make the unit itself for us.”
The three of them had a variety of feedback. Benimaru
didn’t seem too impressed, but to Soei, it was a threat that
he clearly didn’t have a countermeasure against as a
bodyguard. It was a different sort of mission—and a
different sort of challenge.
Shuna, meanwhile, was eager to make one of her own,
the scariest reaction of all. I’m sure it was possible, yes, but
should we? The development of guns changed the entire
nature of wars—although the nature of war in this world
was more about the quality of your offense than the
quantity, which often made traditional Earth strategy
obsolete. Bringing guns into the mix seemed dangerous to
me; I figured we should hit the brakes on that for the time
being.
“In the other world, this is a brutal weapon, something
that can make even a powerless person the strongest out
there. I can’t say how effective it’d be over here, but maybe
you could defend yourself against a magic beast or the
like.”
“Well, you can run out of bullets, but you will never run
out of magic. But you could always make higher-caliber
weapons for extra punch, and with enough of them, you
could be a serious threat. But I hope you won’t start mass-
producing them just because you can, all right?”
Yes, it certainly wasn’t impossible. In fact, it was very
possible. That was why Hinata put her foot down so fast.
“Ah, we’ll see. I think magic’s gonna win out in a fight,
but arming the general populace with guns would still be
dangerous.”
The lack of widespread gun ownership in Japan made me
feel that particularly keenly. Looking at the news from
overseas, you had situations where guns helped protect
someone, but there were a lot more cases where nothing
would’ve happened if guns hadn’t been added to the mix in
the first place. With that in mind, giving everyone access to
such a lethal weapon out of nowhere seemed hazardous.
“All right. We’ll keep this strictly confidential and stick to
research only, then.”
That seemed to placate Shuna, so we decided to go with
that. And besides, threat or not, they didn’t work on us, so
it wasn’t that big of an issue, was it?
Report. Someone without the relevant knowledge would
not understand what happened if they witnessed someone
being shot to death. There is a potentially high chance
someone near the victim is suspected as the killer.
Hmm? That word of caution from Raphael sure came out
of nowhere. What did it mean? Someone near the victim…
…Oh, right! If someone right by me got assassinated, I’d
be a prime suspect, wouldn’t I? That did make sense. And
since Hinata was so closely involved with me, she probably
wouldn’t be allowed to testify on my behalf. If the killer got
away, and the weapon was never found, there was every
chance I could be framed for murder.
That was close! I could’ve fallen right into that trap if we
didn’t have this little chat. Not that I knew whether a trap
was in place at all, but if Raphael was on the lookout, I’d
better assume there was.
“Either way, we’ll all have to be real careful at
tomorrow’s Council meeting.”
“I don’t think non-magical lead bullets would do much
more than sting if they hit us, though. I don’t see cause for
too much alarm,” said Shuna.
“No, I wouldn’t underestimate it like that. Like Hinata
said, higher-caliber weapons are more of a threat, and for
all we know, there may be magic-infused bullets out there.
Plus, if anyone got shot in the middle of the conference, I
think people would point their fingers at me first.”
“I worry about that as well. I will station Replications
around the Council and stay on enhanced guard,” said Soei.
,That’s Soei for you. He must’ve reached the same
conclusion without me pointing it out.
“Right. Thank you.”
“Of course.”
I trusted he could handle any suspects he stumbled
upon. With that concern addressed, I went back to the main
topic. “So, Hinata, why are they calling me here anyway?”
I still hadn’t heard exactly what would be discussed
tomorrow, although I had my hunches. Ramiris and Veldora
thought it was about a dragon causing trouble, or a
mystery demon lord rearing his ugly head, or some other
nonsense. It wasn’t any fairy-tale junk like that—they
wanted to see if they could accept me as one of them. And
based on the four-star treatment I was receiving, I
expected some good news.
“Well, the resolution to let Tempest into the Council
passed at the last special session. At the regular session
tomorrow, you’ll be asked to sit for a Q&A before they
officially enact it.”
Bingo! Those fools could spout off all that nonsense
because they were oblivious to the truth. I was smart to
ignore them.
“Oh, really? I was expecting as much.”
I nodded, as if I knew everything in advance, as Hinata
gave me a doubtful look.
Report. Based on the current situation, there is no other
potential possibility. The subject Hinata Sakaguchi is
believed to be thinking “Why that act?” at the moment.
Huhhhh?!
So sneering at her just made me look stupid, huh? And
sure, I didn’t have any doubts about this, but even I had my
guesses about what they wanted. Like, what if they asked
about my magitrain ideas or the requests to sell the
weaponry Kurobe showed off? Or what if they interrogated
me about which countries were asking us to reveal our
research results? There was a pretty broad range I could
picture, which gave me a headache.
But Raphael was confident this was about Tempest’s
admission. I wish it could’ve clued me in earlier. With a
nervous cough, I took a sip of coffee. Hopefully, I covered
myself well enough…
“Regardless, it’s still not official yet, so try not to do
anything dumb, all right? And I think, during the Q&A,
they’ll probably ask you some tough questions and try to
get under your skin as a demon lord. Don’t fall for their
tricks, okay?”
I wasn’t sure I covered for myself at all, but Hinata
didn’t seem to care either way. I guess it’d be trouble for
her if I screwed up the meetings—since the Holy Empire of
Lubelius was supporting us and all, it’d make them look
terrible. Thus, she was focused on giving me warnings, first
and foremost. How unsettling! I have the patience of a
saint! Nobody could anger me that easily.
“Oh, you’re worrying way too much. Unlike you, I know
how to deal with adult social situations.”
“Huh? If you’re picking a fight, you know I’m game
anytime.”
“Uh, no, um, not like that…”
See? There’s the difference between Hinata and me—the
way she so readily flips the switch. But getting her any
angrier would be bad news for me. I closed my mouth, a
little fearful.
“But you do have a point. They’re giving me all the
bombast of a royal guest, so I am worried that they’ll want
something from me in exchange. You’ve been looking into
that, too, right, Soei?”
“Yes, and I do have some information along those lines.
Beyond that, it’ll come down to the motives of the royalty
involved in this affair, as well as what their subordinates
think…”
“Right. I’d appreciate it if we could talk that over later.”
“Yes, Sir Rimuru…”
Not him and me, but him and Raphael, really.
“…But there is one thing I’d like to ask Lady Hinata.”
“What’s that?”
Hmm? I thought we were done here, but Soei had
concerns of his own. He had deployed his team to the four
corners of the globe, looking into matters. As they
investigated the shadowy committee running the Western
Nations, they were also gathering information on each
nation they visited. I was used to relying on them by now,
whenever there was something I wanted to know—and
knowing Soei, he must’ve heard some relevant rumor by
now.
“It seems that several ministerial-level government
officials from around the region are attempting to take
advantage of our nation. Their aim—”
“…is to have Tempest serve as a defensive wall against
the Eastern Empire?”
“Yes. Exactly, Lady Hinata.”
She had guessed it before Soei could finish. She must’ve
had her finger on the pulse of it, too.
“So if a war breaks out, they want us to help them?
Because right now, the only obligation we have along those
lines is to Blumund. Is that correct?” Benimaru, for his
part, concluded from his own analysis that Soei was
worrying too much. He smiled at him—and I’d say he was
right.
But the real issue lay elsewhere. Hinata probably
realized that as well, and judging by how worry-free she
seemed, she must’ve reached the same conclusion I did.
Plus, in my case, I had Raphael predicting the future for
me, so I could trust in that. If Hinata agreed with me, that
just sealed the deal. So let’s check on that.
“Benimaru’s right. Our only treaty along those lines is
with the Kingdom of Blumund. But even apart from that, I
don’t think we need to worry about the Empire.”
“Could I ask why you think so?” Soei questioned,
apparently quite worried. He always was serious-minded
like that. To calm his mind, I decided to lay out the
conclusion Raphael led me to.
“Well, first off, it’s important to think about things from
the Empire’s standpoint. If the Empire tried to attack the
Western Nations, what kind of strategy could they devise
for that?”
Their goals for the attack were also key, but let’s put that
aside for the moment. If they wanted to wage war, they’d
need to select an invasion route. There was a path straight
through the Forest of Jura, a harsher one over the Canaat
Mountains, and a potential sea route, the old trade passage
dating from before our highway system. And while it
depended on how large a force the Empire sent, there were
issues with every option.
The sea route was a challenging one. It was the most
direct path to the Kingdom of Farmus, but once you left the
shores and went into coastal waters, you left yourself open
to the large sea creatures that called them home. You’d be
sailing right into a nest of over-A monsters, and even a
large fleet wasn’t guaranteed to make it through safely.
Even the spear tuna that was such a delight at our
dinner banquet was a tough foe to face in open water. If
one rammed your ship at sixty knots, or nearly seventy
miles an hour, it would easily tear a huge hole in the vessel.
But even a steel-sided ship couldn’t breathe easy, because
among the creatures in the ocean, a spear tuna was still on
the small side. These creatures lacked intelligence but
brutally attacked anyone who dared intrude into their
territory. There wasn’t a military vessel on this world that
could take a ramming from their thirty-foot-long bodies and
stay afloat.
Thus, only merchants with an intricate knowledge of safe
sea routes dared to cross the ocean.
So what about the Canaat Mountains option? Well, that’d
involve traversing a hellscape known as the Dragon’s Nest.
Dragons are willing to let a merchant caravan go by
unharmed, but something bigger—say, a large army—was a
great way to invite their wrath upon you. They weren’t
human, so negotiation was out of the question. If they
mistakenly decided you were hostile, it was all over. These
dragons were led by a powerful Dragon Lord, and if they
had you in their sights, they’d pare down your army well
before you had a chance to fight your war. If you won, then
fine; if you lost, the whole world would laugh at you. And
even if you did beat those dragons, you had the Western
Nations’ forces waiting for you on the other side. The
feature presentation, in other words.
Besides, a military march through rugged mountains was
an ordeal in itself. The path only opened up in the middle of
the summer anyway. When the snow and ice settled onto
those frigid peaks, all the magic in the world wouldn’t
,get
you through.
No, any strategist who hadn’t lost his marbles would
avoid this route at all costs.
Thus, your only choice left was through the Forest of
Jura. But:
“The forest is the territory of a demon lord, and that’s
me. And there’s Veldora, too, right?”
“Yeah. And now that the whole world knows of the Storm
Dragon’s awakening, the Empire can’t afford to make any
funny moves. They feared him even when he was still
banished, so right now, they’re essentially frozen in place.”
Exactly.
We had spread the news that Veldora destroyed the
Farmus army, and the Empire heard about that quite some
time ago, I’m sure. Any ambitions they had along those
lines must’ve been shelved by now. The Empire had feared
Veldora for ages, and that fear made them too careful for
their own good. If they had acted sooner, they might just
have wiped us out, for all I know.
But now Veldora’s here, and Veldora was chiefly why
Raphael assured me we were golden.
Report. That was a prediction, not a conclusion. The
situation is constantly changing. If I obtain new information,
I will need to factor that into my assumptions.
Wow. What a worrywart. But that was fair. Working on
bad assumptions can lead to some serious pitfalls later.
“It is true that the Empire is making some ominous
moves. The Shadows I tried as familiars have proven pretty
useless, so I was thinking we had better conduct a more
thorough investigation soon. However…”
Soei’s time was already occupied with exploring the
Western Nations’ underground, and members from Team
Kurayami were carrying out their own missions as well.
About all he could do was send out Shadows, low-level
apparition creatures that ranked a D but could use Shadow
Motion and Thought Communication, making them perfect
spies. On paper, at least. Unfortunately, they were too weak
to penetrate the barrier that protected the Empire.
It was hard, however, to send over anyone stronger than
them. If I was deploying people to places with unknown
security situations, that limited my applicant list to those
Soei could vouch for. And if I detached any of those people
from their current missions, that would hinder my orders.
Soei was talented but not omnipotent. Even after his
evolution, he could only deploy up to six Replications of
himself at once. Those were the trump cards he used to
carry out the dangerous work I always sent him off to. He
needed to leave some on tap in case a battle broke out, so if
I sent any of those to the Empire, I’m sure he’d worry over
who would be left to guard me.
“The Empire’s moves really aren’t being looked at that
seriously, though. It’s more of a cover story, an excuse for
letting Tempest into the Council, that’s being spread
around by a few of the louder representatives. But if you’re
that concerned, Sir Soei, I could conduct some
investigations myself.”
Oooh. I see that Hinata, like Raphael, doesn’t like
trusting her own thoughts too much. I always knew how
wary she was, but seeing that in action, I kinda had to
admire it. I could learn from it, in fact.
But now she’s volunteering to help investigate, huh? I
might as well take her up on that—
Report. Please ask her to look into the Armed Nation of
Dwargon as well and see whether military activity is
possible within its underground cities.
…Raphael never wavers, does it? Now it’s trying to work
Hinata to the ground, too. But that made sense to me. The
Canaat Mountains had some paths that led into the
Dwarven Kingdom, the territory of Gazel. I couldn’t
imagine the Empire can do much with those roads, but it’d
be worth looking into, just in case.
“Could I ask a favor when you do, Hinata?”
“What’s that?”
“I’d kinda like you to investigate the structure of the
Dwarven Kingdom, I think.”
“Right, the Dwarven Kingdom’s a city crafted from a
cave underneath the Canaat Mountains. Hmm… That could
be a possibility, too. You act so careless, but I really can’t
let my guard down around you, can I?”
“Ha—ha-ha-ha… Right?”
“All right. I’ll look into the Dwarven Kingdom as well.”
I wasn’t sure what prompted Hinata’s admiration, but
fine. I thought Raphael was carrying on about nothing, but
there’s no sure thing in this world. I was just thinking
about how I needed to be more careful. If there’s a weed
bothering me, better to uproot it now rather than later—
and if Hinata was volunteering, no reason to hold back.
So we carefully went through the rest of our discussions,
talking about closely held state secrets and other vital
affairs in the early-afternoon café space. We had a magical
Soundproof Barrier over us, so nobody was going to
eavesdrop on our conversation anyway. Skills can be so
useful like that.
Hinata was kind enough to brief me on a few other
things, too. It seemed like a lot of people wanted to take
advantage of us—and not just for military purposes.
Humans, after all, were suspicious folk—I should know; I
used to be one. That’s why what Hinata told me made so
much sense.
“I just want you to know, all right? There are people out
there trying to use and abuse you, so don’t let them
shoehorn you into anything.”
I had to accept that as correct. Whether I would listen to
that advice was another question.
“What do you mean, use and abuse me?”
“Well, in terms of your military, at the very least. That’s
something I’d want from you, too, and that’s what you want
to see, right?”
As she put it, one condition for joining the Council was
that we’d be responsible for management of the entire
Forest of Jura. The member nations were unanimous on
that, since we’d function as a bulwark against the Empire.
“I got no problem with that. With fewer monsters out
there, I’m sure we’ll see more people challenge the
labyrinth. We do want that, yeah.”
“Better not freely admit it so much. I’ve had to deal with
a lot of heads of state in my time, and let me tell you,
they’re clever. They might even ask you to station troops in
their countries to keep monster damage down.”
Normally, allowing foreign troops to stay in your nation
wasn’t the kind of thing governments liked to see. But as
Hinata put it, in a world where monsters were a universal
threat, leaders wanted to retain as much war power as they
could. Many of them weren’t afraid to use other nations’
troops for that, including the Western Nations’ Temple
Knights.
Proposal. You could deploy troops to their nations to
create an obligation to you.
If we were recognized as a nation, it made sense that we
could deploy our army to foreign lands as a peacetime
maneuver. If something came up, that’d make it easier to
exercise our military authority. My home country back in
my previous world took that strategy a lot.
“Hohh. I see, I see. That’s not a bad idea, actually. Why
don’t I let them use us?”
“I can’t say I like letting them think they’re taking
advantage of us, but…yes.”
“It’s essentially giving influence to our nation, isn’t it?”
I grinned as Benimaru and Soei voiced their agreement.
Shuna kept up her own smile, and I suppose her lack of
complaint meant she agreed. And if we were all on the
same page, that meant I could do what I wanted tomorrow.
“Why’re you looking all sinister?” an exasperated Hinata
asked. Guess she’s reading my mind again. But she didn’t
say anything else, which I took as her tacit approval.
That marked the end of our lunchtime discussion, but
before she left, Hinata brought up something else, as if she
had just thought of it.
“Oh, right. I think there’s also a group planning to do
something stupid at the event tomorrow, so be on the
lookout for it, okay?”
Once again, she warned me not to lose my temper or
lash out at anyone. What she meant, I suppose, is that the
Council wasn’t a monolith, and I should treat everybody
there as one and the same. Eesh. Why was she so
concerned about a pacifist like me? She didn’t need to say
it; I understood just fine. So I told her she was worrying too
much, and we left
,it at that.
The next day came.
We were heading over to the Council’s meeting hall—
Benimaru, Soei, Shuna, and me, all in suits and lookin’
sharp. It goes without saying that all our weapons were in
my Stomach, so at a glance, it would’ve looked like we
were unarmed.
Hinata had given me her full briefing, so I didn’t have an
iota of anxiety. Maybe a few councillors wanted to take
advantage of us, but on the question of my admission to the
Council, all my worries were behind me. If I was recognized
as a friend to humankind here, that’d be one step closer to
the ideal society I had in mind—a world where man and
monster coexisted and shared in one another’s prosperity.
To borrow a phrase from Mjurran, a Monster-and-Man
Cooperative Alliance.
On the monster side, we already had magic-born,
dwarves, elves, and more living with one another. That
alone already resulted in a massive new economic sphere,
but as an ex-human, I really wanted to reach out to them as
well. But humans, you know—they’re greedy. It’s all What
do I get out of this? with them, and they’re willing to shut
out their own countrymen just for thinking the wrong thing.
But that greed helps them improve their lives, too, and it’s
the engine driving all sorts of new and expanding
entertainment.
They weren’t simple to deal with. Not like monsters.
Better avoid expecting too much here. I couldn’t assume
this would go great from the very beginning.
When I reached the Council hall, several councillors
were there to greet me. They were from our border
nations, and based on what they heard from the Founder’s
Festival participants, they wanted to forge friendlier
relations with me. I sure appreciated all the compliments,
and I responded in kind, figuring it best for the future. They
started smiling at me, the ice now firmly broken.
“Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha! I heard you were a demon lord, Sir
Rimuru, but what I didn’t hear about was how much of a
sociable leader you are!”
“I would certainly like to maintain a friendly relationship
with you, going forward.”
“No, no, the pleasure’s all mine. I’ve got a slate of events
in mind going forward, so if you’re interested, please feel
free to attend!”
I got the idea they were still a bit too leery to attend the
Founder’s Festival. Now, though, they were being
downright familial with me. All that effort from Rigurd,
Mjöllmile, and the others must have been paying off.
Now I was feeling really good. Hinata gave me all sorts
of doom and gloom yesterday, but I guess I really didn’t
need to worry. But the next person to greet me sent me
straight into a depression.
“A-hem! People, people, quit bothering Sir Rimuru.
Councillors from tiny dots on the map with hardly anything
to them shouldn’t be occupying his time all day!”
“Indeed, indeed. All this rudeness may give Sir Rimuru
the wrong idea about our Council. So please, remember
your place and leave him alone.”
My little entourage was promptly chased off by a group
of representatives who acted like they owned the place. I
wanted to ask who was being rude here, but I held back.
Soei told me via Thought Communication that these people
were from nations with some clout in this Council—every
representative was allegedly equal, but that wasn’t really
the practice. That was shown perfectly well by these people
who took it as their prerogative to lord it over their peers.
There was definitely a pecking order here, based on your
social standing.
“Right, Sir Rimuru. I tell you, you’ll never have any
constructive conversation with people like that.”
“Yeah, thanks. And what would you call constructive?”
I really didn’t want to deal with these guys, but I decided
to play along.
“Heavens be! I suppose you may not be picking up on
the hints, Sir Rimuru?”
“Ha-ha-ha! It stands to reason, I think. Sir Rimuru has
never had to deal in noble etiquette before. But don’t
worry. We’ll teach you everything you need to know!”
A simple question, and already they were answering me
with stuck-up laughter. They made it seem so natural that I
couldn’t even tell if they were being deliberately malicious.
A bit overly familiar perhaps, but it beat being feared…I
think?
“By the way, Sir Rimuru, I hear you’ve been busy
crafting a great deal of interesting things?”
“Yes! They say you’re considering a magitrain system,
for example, and let me tell you, my nation would be more
than happy to be part of that effort.”
“Ah yes, precisely. And the same is true with mine. We’d
be happy to pitch in! Of course, we’d like a little, ah…well,
you know…in return.”
Um, sure.
So this is what jaw-dropping means. Rude ain’t the half
of it! I went lightly because these are presumably nobility,
but that was a mistake. I must’ve really given them the
wrong first impression. But I was on their turf. I needed to
hold back, or things could easily spiral out of control. Broad
mind, broad mind. Given all my grandstanding to Hinata, I
couldn’t get riled up here.
“Well, we need to put rails in place before we can run
any magitrains. We’ve already created an order for our
layout construction, so I’m afraid I can’t take any more
requests right now.”
“Ah, no need to worry yourself over such details. I will
gladly arrange matters with my government, so if you could
give us some priority with your delivery, that would be
quite fine.”
Something told me he had no idea what a magitrain was.
He’d never seen the real thing, after all. As if that weren’t
bad enough, he was also completely ignoring my own
priorities and throwing thoughtless, one-way demands at
my feet.
But…again. Patience.
“No, no! As I said, there’s an order to this—”
But as I tried to bottle up my anger and turn him down,
the demands just kept piling up.
“Then perhaps some other product, then? If you could
arrange for some weapons or armor, we will be happy to
buy it. Of course, don’t forget to compensate us later!”
The bearded man in front of me, representing the duchy
of Laquia, was a particular eyesore. He was not-so-
stealthily demanding a bribe. I wondered if he had
somehow forgotten I was a demon lord.
The nations adjoining the Forest of Jura were exposed to
monster threats, but these more inland nations enjoyed
total peace and security from them. That’s why they
prospered so much, I suppose, and maybe they just didn’t
see a demon lord as that big of a deal…but this was still an
awful way to approach me. I felt like an idiot for even
giving him the time of day.
“Also, may I inquire as to what kind of education your
agent Mjöllmile has? I asked my officials to have him open
some business channels, but he’s been rather evasive about
giving a reply, I hear. Would we be able to work with
someone else instead?”
I wanted to yell “Shut up!!” at him. If this was the type
Mjöllmile dealt with, then I was inadvertently putting him
through a ton of pain. He always seemed to brush them off
with ease, but some officials are more stubborn than
others. I had a lot to learn from him.
“I’ll look into that,” I replied with a smile. Such a lovely
turn of phrase, “I’ll look into that.” Indicating your interest
in getting the job done, but offering no firm timetable,
freeing you from the obligation to actually do anything. The
secret weapon of elite office staff everywhere. That was the
brilliant strategy I deployed—bluff my way through, then
pretend the conversation never happened.
“Ah, good to hear!”
“We’ll look forward to future matters, then.”
“And now, we’d best be on our way.”
“Don’t be shy about offering your lineup, now! We can
talk any time!”
That phrase deftly shooed all those fools away. Now
that’s how an adult deals with matters. If you want
something, go buy it yourself; that’s what I say.
“Ah, certainly, I look forward to that,” I lied as I saw the
representatives go.
What a pain they were. I had no obligation to give them
anything. It’d be much surer for us if we just sold our wares
through the Free Guild—at least
,they didn’t demand bribes.
A few other councillors approached me as well, and I
gave some quick greetings before moving along. Any long
conversations here seemed likely to get me in trouble.
It was still morning and already I was getting a bit testy,
but at least this was good experience. If I caused any
problems before the conference even began, there’s no
telling what kind of tongue-lashing Hinata would give me
later. I decided to accept things as they were as we entered
the hall.
“Should you have let them go like that, Sir Rimuru? I can’t
believe you forgave their flippant behavior…”
Benimaru turned to me the moment the attendants
guided us to my seat. He held back before, following my
lead, I suppose. I was ready to vent back at him, but Soei
and Shuna beat me to the punch.
“Don’t expect Sir Rimuru to act like you. The bleating of
little minions like them would never be enough to disturb
his mind.”
“Exactly, my brother. Sir Rimuru has a heart as broad as
the wide-open sea. It would be foolish for him to engage
with the common crowd like that.”
Um, sure. If that’s what they say, I guess I’ll just have to
play along.
“Yeah, something like that. Benimaru, if you let that rile
you, you’ve still got a lot to learn.”
Of course, I was angry on the inside. But if Shuna and
Soei were kind enough to misread my body language for
me, I had to work with it. I spent a few more minutes
lecturing them on the finer points of interacting with
humans.
The seats were laid out in a fan shape, with us at the
base, where the chairman would normally be situated. This
put everybody’s focus squarely on us—one desk and one
chair. My associates had to stand behind me.
The chairman emceeing this session had moved to a
safer seat on the second mezzanine. I say “safer” as
compared to us. Being a demon lord must’ve put a lot of
people on their guard around here, and having all their
eyes on me made it terribly difficult to collect my thoughts.
So the meeting was formally brought into session, but
that’s when hell really began for me. I was trying to be
shrewd, as haughty as my post demanded, but I couldn’t
lose my temper, either. I had to hold it all in, listening to
everything the councillors said.
Hinata had clued me in on the agenda before I came
here. First, on the subject of Tempest joining the Council of
the West, the representatives were debating on assorted
conditions to impose on the deal. These could be broadly
divided into three demands:
One: adherence to international law
Two: access to our economic sphere
Three: provision of military power
Number one was no problem to me. If we became a
member, we’d have a duty to follow the law, big or small.
The Council didn’t have any right to be involved with the
internal laws of other nations, which eased my concern.
Each individual merchant would have to follow the rules of
whatever country they were doing business in, and if any
problems arose, they’d be resolved following those laws.
Got a problem with that judgment? The merchants could
file a complaint with their nations’ embassy. Depending on
how that turned out, it’d either become an international
issue or the merchant would have to give it up.
Frankly, I liked that system a lot more than what I saw
after the Founder’s Festival. It established an international
legal framework to preside over cross-border issues,
complete with an international court and a judge from a
third-party nation. In fact, that was part of the Council’s
role in this region, with representatives recusing
themselves as the legislature debated issues involving
them. Nothing too tricky about it.
Of course, to keep things fair, we needed to enact and
announce a body of law for our own nation. That was an
issue, but I had good ol’ Raphael on my side. It had a full
grasp of laws from all nations, and it used it to perfectly
cover all the bases as it defined our own set for us. We
already sent a copy of that to the Council, so all was well.
Providing access to our economy presented a few issues.
Given the lack of patents in this world, the trend was for
whoever produced the best copy of something to win all the
marbles. Before that, however, there was that “heavenly
army” that attacked whenever our civilization got too
advanced, an army of a million angels descending from the
sky and razing our cities to the ground. That’s why the
Western Nations had no gas or electricity—not even steam
engines.
But this didn’t mean life was difficult. We had magic and,
by extension, magic-driven items. Our attire didn’t lose out
to Japan at all, and while the transport of fresh foods was
out of the question, our nations were good at food storage.
There was some excellent magic being harnessed for
building construction, leading to some very impressive
work—I’m not sure you could replicate some of the castles
and other standout projects with modern Japanese
technology.
So everyone’s core needs—food, clothing, shelter—were
being fulfilled, and life was actually pretty pleasant in the
cities. So what’s the problem?
The problem was that, between Vester and Gabil’s
presentation and Kurobe’s weapon and armor exhibition,
word about our technology was starting to leak out, as
shown by that bearded guy from Laquia asking about my
magitrains. Yohm and Mjurran were commanding large
groups of workers, of course, so this was expected. I didn’t
mind if people knew about our stuff, but I did mind the
people who tried to steal it.
Or really, trying to steal it was one thing, but now you
had people like that Laquian guy trying to make us build a
railroad and calling it a business transaction.
“Laquia should share in this first!”
“How could you be so thoughtless? Sir Rimuru, the
Republic of Zamund is far more worthy of serving as
Tempest’s closest partner!”
“Order! Now is not the time for debate between member
nations. You’re simply baffling Sir Rimuru!”
If the white-bearded chairman hadn’t stepped in to quiet
things down, we might’ve been bogged down forever.
Open markets, in themselves, weren’t a problem, but I
wasn’t expecting an obligation to share all of our tech. If
they see us as some kind of international handyman for
them, I dreaded how they might try to use us in the future.
Now I saw why I had reason to worry about the things I
did. And despite how depressed I already felt, the
conference was still dragging on.
As for the third condition, a military power-sharing deal,
we’d need to have some debate on that.
Following Hinata’s word of caution, I had Soei do some
more research for me. We know there were people who
wanted to tap into our war power under the name of
military cooperation, but the same was also true for us.
Tempest would be responsible for managing the Forest of
Jura; the proposal was for us to handle monster-related
issues, and I was fine with that. That much I predicted from
the start, and it worked better for us. Even in my
discussions with Hinata, we agreed that Tempest would
handle Jura defenses, while the Crusaders covered things
in the Barren Lands.
My nation would cover the bill for this monster defense,
which I’m sure the Council loved. After all, if we wanted to
keep the economy running smoothly, world affairs needed
to be kept stable. Nations wary of the Eastern Empire no
doubt appreciated our defensive power as well—not that I
expected it to happen, but if push did come to shove, we’d
be there on the front line of it.
So yes, the Council definitely wanted to take advantage
of us. That’s why I needed to be sure we could do the same
in return.
We would defend the Forest of Jura—that was a given.
But the smaller nations also wanted to use our excess
capacity to help protect themselves. There may have been
fewer monsters venturing out from the forest, but they still
couldn’t defend against unexpected monster intrusions.
Some flying monsters were particularly dangerous, and the
nations couldn’t afford
,to cheap out on their defense
budget. But there were patrol soldiers and monster-hunting
adventurers to pay, and if the Council didn’t cover the cost,
they’d have to make up the difference with taxes.
Even worse, if they had to wait around for the Free Guild
to show up after a monster discovery, they couldn’t prevent
damage before it happened. Nations that had Luminism as
their official religion enjoyed regular patrol visits from the
Crusaders, but there wasn’t an infinite number of them.
They had a huge amount of terrain to cover, and I’m sure
there were times when they were simply unavailable when
needed the most.
That’s where we came in. Each nation could pay us a
defense fee, and then they’d be free to use us however they
liked. At the same time, though, they’d be relying on us for
national defense, so they wouldn’t be able to ignore us any
longer. It’d be a display of power for Tempest—and a way to
expand our influence on the Western Nations. The money
they’d pay us would also strengthen our position—two birds
with one stone, really.
And what if the Empire really did attack? Then, for
better or worse, Tempest was right in the middle of their
invasion route. If a fight couldn’t be avoided, it’d naturally
be well-advised for us to shore up our rear support. If they
accepted our defensive forces instead of fearing us, we
couldn’t ask for anything better.
If we wanted to make this work, there needed to be an
absolute, overwhelming difference in war power—enough
to make other nations think they could never beat us in a
war. It’d be ridiculous to entrust your defenses to another
country otherwise. And if we could make the Western
Nations take a “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” stance with
us, our mission was as good as accomplished.
As each of the representatives gave us demands and
played interference with one another, the chairman
completed his preamble.
“…Those are the conditions placed upon the admission
of the Jura-Tempest Federation. Lord Rimuru, do you have
any objections?”
I had better give him some, or else I’d be consenting to
everything. I could ignore the councillors’ inane
commentary, but I better not commit any oversights with
these conditions. I wanted to take advantage of these guys,
but unless I could bind them down with a treaty, I was
wasting my time.
Isn’t this the kind of thing we work out on paper first,
then get a chance to debate on? That annoyed me a bit.
What if I couldn’t give them an instant reply in this session?
I assumed this was another way of harassing me. But I
had Raphael with me, considering all the oral arguments
and using my own hands to write them down. Talk about
omnipotent. So I had my friend think about the issues and
come up with a rebuttal.
“Well, I’ve considered all of your conditions and
prepared a list of my doubts and alternative suggestions for
each one. If you can accept those, I have no reason not to
go forward.”
I handed the documents I had written up to Benimaru,
who took them to the chairman. He accepted them, looking
a bit overpowered by him.
“…Wha?!”
I had agreed to the general outline of the conditions
offered—but I had changed a few of the stipulations to
ensure I still profited, even if they took advantage of me.
Raphael was kind enough to mark out all the sections to
change for me, so (unlike an oral agreement) everything
was set in stone after the fact.
The chairman, no doubt seeing us as mere monsters,
looked at the documents—a complete, blow-by-blow
rundown of the explanation he had given us—and blanched.
I could understand his surprise when he saw my revisions
in red pen, all but spelling out for him that he couldn’t pull
a fast one on me. It was all Raphael’s doing, not mine, but
let’s gloss over the details here.
“If you have any concerns, I’d be happy to discuss them.”
If he couldn’t accept my terms, there was no urgent
need to join the Council. I’d just presume that my quest for
general acceptance from humankind was still a bit
premature and deepen my ties with the nations that
already accepted us.
“No, no, there are no problems, exactly…but if possible,
Lord Rimuru, I would like some time to debate these
matters.”
The chairman, being no fool, must’ve realized that he
couldn’t browbeat us like usual. He would carefully go over
my revisions, and he voiced no real complaint about that.
Not that I got any time to deliberate—but even if I
protested, I wouldn’t have gotten any. So for now, I agreed
to his request.
Why was this happening?
The desk, kicked into the air, was suspended in space,
slowly falling to the ground—and in the midst of this nearly
stopped moment in time, Hinata’s eyes seemed particularly
cold to me. She didn’t need to use her voice to tell me what
she was thinking: You’ve done it after all.
With a heavy sound, the desk crashed to the floor. I
buried my heel in it, crushing it beyond recognition. Too
late to turn back now.
So I reclined in my chair as if I had planned all this,
crossing one leg over the other. Then, giving a gloating
stare at the councillors gaping at me, I heaved an internal
sigh.
Look, I kept it bottled up at first. I had a reputation as a
grown, mature leader for Tempest, and I took pride in
having a heart broader than the ocean. That much, I think
I’ve made clear from my recent actions. People called me a
bastion of fortitude; I could even handle Milim with no
problem. That broad heart of mine allowed me to laugh off
and forgive all her selfish bantering.
But what if, instead of Milim, you had this room full of
unattractive, obsessed, materialistic old men who never
even bothered to hide the avarice glinting in their eyes?
You could find the answer in that twisted desk in front of
me.
After an extended, three-hour break, the meeting went
back into session.
Here’s where my problems began. In response to the
documents I submitted, the representative created
something they called a list of requests and handed it to
me. Judging by the tired look on the chairman’s face, this
was done against his will, but I didn’t have any sympathy
for him.
A quick look through the list showed me that I could
accept absolutely none of their demands. Here’s a
rundown:
• Open a magitrain line to Englesia, with Tempest
handling all construction and costs.
• Provide high-quality weaponry and armor. Tempest is
requested to help the Western Nations strengthen its
military preparations.
• As the labyrinth that appeared in Tempest is a
treasure to all humankind, add the Council to its
administration team.
• Upon admission, Tempest will provide a preset amount
of taxes on a yearly basis. Due to safety considerations,
the representatives it selects must be humans.
And so on—there was a lot of nonsense written down.
I gotta hand it to them; they made me lose my temper in
the space of three seconds. These conditions weren’t even
worth debating. This wasn’t just an unequal treaty; I’d
sooner give up living with humans entirely than sign on to
this.
“All right, people. Are you making fun of me? You’ve
been prattling on and on today, but what makes you think
you’ve got the right to make demands to a demon lord?”
My kicking the desk to pieces made the hall notably
quieter. Holding back my rage, I spoke directly to the
chairman, currently hanging his head in shame.
“Sir Rimuru is asking a question. Don’t just sit there
quietly. Please answer him.”
Shuna, smiling, delivered a follow-up blow for me, and I
think that had more of an effect than anything I said. The
councillors looked fully cowed now, some of them breaking
into a cold sweat.
“I think you have the wrong idea here. Our nation has
already almost completed a gigantic economic bloc of its
own. The one reason we want to join the Council of the
West anyway is so we can show the human race that we’re
not hostile to them. But if you don’t want that, I’ve got no
intention of forcing things along here…”
My
,voice rang quietly in the silent chamber. I wasn’t
shouting at all, but it seemed to make all the
representatives’ minds shiver with fear.
I wasn’t using Lord’s Ambition or anything like that.
Against a human target, Lord’s Ambition would cause sheer
panic at best, insanity and death at worst. No need to break
that out. And I wasn’t brainwashing them at all, either—if I
did, I’d be throwing all the goodwill I built with humanity
out the window. I had no interest in living out my life with a
legion of boring puppets who said nothing but yes to me.
No, this was just me being riled into destroying the desk
and laying out my full opinions. But even that had a
massive effect.
“N-no, Sir Rimuru, that was not at all the motive behind
our requests…”
“C-certainly not! We simply provided our perhaps overly
optimistic feedback out of a desire to deepen our friendly
ties with you.”
The browbeaten councillors desperately began making
excuses. The more of them I heard, the more annoyed I got.
First off, why was the king of a nation only a “sir”? If I
was convening with other kings and leaders, I’d expect that
—but being called it by someone without a country to
govern was the same as saying I ran no nation at all. It was
a nation addressing a colony, and it demonstrated zero
respect for us. I’m sure they looked down on us as a bunch
of monsters. I could put up with being looked down upon
personally, but if it was my whole country? Forget it.
I am a demon lord and expected to be treated that way,
but this was even worse than I expected. My hotel was first
class, and lot of the councillors here treated me with
respect, so maybe I let my guard down a little—but still,
this was horrible.
“Oh? Then what was your motive? Because to me, this
sounds like you want my nation and me to work day and
night for you as your slaves.”
“No, not at all!”
“That was not our intention whatsoever! It was nothing
like that—”
The councillors argued mightily. If these nobles were
meant to represent entire nations, it just made my head
hurt. Even with a heart as tolerant as mine, having to
negotiate with people like this was testing me. If Yuuki had
made these sly old dogs do his bidding, then he must be the
slyest fox of all. I wish I could follow his example, but I
don’t think I could.
Suggestion. Would you like me to automatically handle
this?
Yes
No
It sounded like Raphael was saying something, but I’m
sure I imagined it. Yes, it’s a trusted, talented assistant, but
it’s still just a skill. It shouldn’t be able to so freely speak
its mind like that. I guess I’ve been relying on it so much,
I’m starting to hear my own internal desires spoken back to
me. If something like that were possible, I’d probably have
Raphael give all my speeches for me, and it’d be—like—
why did I suffer for so long, then?
I shook my head, attempting to shake the delusions from
my mind, then stared back at the councillors.
…Crap. Now that my mind was cleared out, I just
realized I had no idea how to resolve this situation. Haste
makes waste—and all that. I just made things super-
complicated for myself, and fixing it all up was going to be
an uphill battle. The representatives were frantic for a
solution, and honestly, so was I.
Report. It is not a problem. As you intended, Master, I
have confirmed the effect of the spiritual interference
affecting the room.
Um, what?
I wasn’t intending anything there. I wasn’t thinking at
all. I was pissed off, so I reacted accordingly. And now—
Report. With this quantity of samples, I have discovered
the laws governing the spiritual interference. As with the
subject Gaiye, the majority of councillors in this chamber
are under the effect of spiritual interference from someone.
Remove the interference?
Yes
No
Well, I mean, sure…
I thought Yes in my mind without hesitation. The
moment I did, the previously silent councillors began to
speak up again.
“Well, of course Lord Rimuru is angry! How could we
make up for this disgrace—?”
“Wait! These conditions weren’t even brought up in our
previous special session!”
“Who tried to slip these past us?!”
Things started to change pretty quick. Raphael strikes
again. No matter the issue, I can always rely on it.
“Heh-heh… Looks like the councillors regained their
senses,” I defiantly muttered, as if this was my plan all
along. I just wanted to look cool, really, but it sure elicited a
response from Shuna.
“They certainly did! I thought they were acting a bit
strange, but someone had taken over their spirits?”
Well, Raphael?
Understood. It is a type of Spiritual Interference skill. It
does not exert any influence on magicules, so confirming its
presence took some time, but it is statistically impossible for
so many people to possess such similar wavelengths. It was
believed that canceling it would take time, but your anger
wavelengths created an open seam.
Right. Exactly like I pictured it—let’s go with that.
“I don’t think it was that strong,” I ventured, without any
evidence. “The spiritual interference gave the councillors a
sort of tunnel vision, maybe?”
Shuna and the rest of my crew gave me looks of
impressed respect.
“I see. So you placed pressure on them to shake them
out of it?”
“That’s right, Benimaru. I considered it all clearly before
doing it.”
Better phrase it that way, I don’t want them to start
imitating my temper tantrum just now. Plus, this gave me
the perfect excuse for Hinata. We’re all good…
…but I still had my doubts. Who carried out that spiritual
interference, anyway? Probably not Yuuki, I don’t think; I
doubted he’d take an approach that left so much evidence
like this. If he did, he’d need some motivation to—but no
point pondering over that. Now wasn’t the time to pursue
the culprit.
Right now, I needed to solve the problems staring me in
the face. The newly awoken councillors were bearing down
on a subset of the Council, the group who created that list
of demands. There were more than I thought, but they still
looked like all was well. They must’ve had some other
scheme in mind.
Suddenly, I felt something odd. A few of them were
looking toward a door deeper inside the chamber. Turning
my ears toward it, I could hear several sets of footsteps.
Did someone call the royal guard?
Report. No such movements were detected, so it is
believed this was planned in advance.
Mm-hmm.
Maybe they set this up to have me cause a scene so they
could arrest me? Against a demon lord, that took a lot of
guts. Maybe it really was that sloppy of a plan—I could
picture it—but if so, the people of Englesia and its
surrounding nations must have been pretty oblivious to
danger. They were so far away from the threat of demon
lords that they must’ve gotten soft. The same was true of
their councillors; there must have been a lot of optimists
around there.
Or maybe these were the fools “scheming something”
Hinata had warned about?
The moment that occurred to me, the door opened,
revealing a dozen or so soldiers led by a larger man.
“Well, someone’s sure in a lively mood! So you’re the fool
calling himself a demon lord? You certain you can afford to
act so high and mighty if you’ve only got three people with
ya?”
The large man immediately began shouting at me the
moment he came inside. He gave a vulgar smile as he made
no attempt to hide his disdain for me. This wasn’t just rude;
he was trying to start a fight, and there was no way to
excuse it. My friends and I gave one another dumbfounded
looks.
Hang on. This was part of their plan. They had some kind
of deep design behind this—
Understood. It is believed that this man has nothing of
the sort.
…Oh, really? So he’s just a huge idiot?
“Um… My name is Rimuru, and yes, I call myself a
demon lord. Are you confusing me with someone else?”
Juuuust in case, I thought I should ask. Whoops, wrong
guy wouldn’t cut it when the dust settled, so I tried to
figure out the man’s true
,even.
If they’re getting tripped up at this point, any D-ranked
monster would’ve mangled them with one swipe.
Among the more head-scratching cases were people who
quit for the most pathetic of reasons—they had no food and
got hungry. Save points were located on every tenth floor,
and every fifth featured a safe, monster-free zone with
drinkable water. We also amply warned people to bring a
decent supply of food with them. But no. The other
adventurers must’ve looked at the example Basson set for
their own preparations, but clearly that was not enough.
Adventurers tend to be proud people, I suppose, and they
definitely weren’t into listening to instructions. A fair
number of them didn’t even bring any rations along—
maybe they felt safe, knowing they could be resurrected, or
maybe they overestimated their own strength. I don’t know,
but regardless, they couldn’t find their way back to the exit,
so no wonder they started starving.
Clearly, they had it coming.
And I mean, I get it. I know people want to retrieve as
much as they can from the treasure chests here. But if I
was seriously intent on killing my challengers in this
labyrinth, I don’t think anyone would conquer it in a
hundred years.
Still, most of this first wave of customers were broke
bodyguards and mercenaries looking for a quick buck, none
of them with much exploration experience. No need to
panic yet, I thought, as I watched things unfold for three
days. But in the end, not a single party made it to Floor 5’s
safe zone. I could barely stand to watch.
………
……
…
We made money from their admission fees, at least, so it
was no loss for us. But if this keeps up, it’ll kill adventurers’
enthusiasm, and we’ll lose any shot at repeat traffic.
I figured we needed to reevaluate things from the
ground up. This was far beyond expectations. I just wanted
to bury my head in my hands.
So I called for an emergency conference.
This consisted of Veldora, Ramiris, Masayuki as an
observer, and me; I also invited Mjöllmile as the main
businessman behind the Dungeon. Once everyone was
present, I spoke first.
“Well, it’s been about three whole days since we opened
the labyrinth, but I think it’s safe to say the results have
been unsatisfactory. Or really, just crap. If we want this to
be any fun at all—um, I mean, if we want our user base to
keep coming back to the labyrinth, I think we’ll need to
give them some guidance.”
The way things were going, I wasn’t sure anyone would
even reach Floor 10. Everything about my plans for this
place was in stasis. My conclusion: We needed to offer at
least a little bit of strategic help for our users, or we’d
never get anywhere.
“Indeed! Rimuru is right. At this point, I’d need to wait
until the end of time for anyone to reach me.”
“True, true. And I want people to see all my
masterpieces below Floor 50. I think people deserve some
hints!”
Along those lines, Veldora and Ramiris were in
agreement. Masayuki was still thinking—or really, just
standing there confused. I guess he wasn’t too sure why I
called him here. The invite came kind of suddenly, so I
couldn’t blame him—but he was bound to get into the
swing of things soon. I’ll call on him, then.
I turned my eyes from him to Mjöllmile, who looked
pretty excited about getting to meet Masayuki the Hero.
Maybe that’s why he so eagerly spoke up once he noticed
my gaze.
“May I offer my impressions?” Mjöllmile asked.
“Anything’s welcome,” I said. “Give me your worst.”
He nodded. “You mentioned offering hints, but I’d like us
to approach that with a soft touch. It’s still only been three
days, and our challengers so far have all been from the
lower ranks. We’ve asked the Free Guild to invite more
seasoned adventurers for us, so I think we’ll see more rated
C and above from here on.”
“You think that’ll work out?”
“I do. I have trouble figuring out Sir Yuuki’s motivations
sometimes, but he’s always true to his word. He’s been
sending magical communication to advertise to Free Guild
offices worldwide on our behalf.”
“Yeah, it’d benefit the Guild, too. Anything else?”
“Yes, I’ve been using my own connections with other
merchants. We’ve been reaching out to more talented
bodyguards, as well as their friends. According to the
feedback I’ve received, we’ve had quite a good reaction so
far.”
Relaying the news and gauging the results were both
key. I had asked Soka, leader of Team Kurayami, to work
with Mjöllmile and help him on those fronts. The two of
them had led the labyrinth presentation together. Mjöllmile
was always good when dealing with people, and they had
quickly broken the ice. I was glad to see there was no
discrimination involved there.
Soka’s team was now following Mjöllmile’s instructions—
and actually, Soei was as well. At the moment, Soei was
tracking the movements of Duke Meusé and the people
around him, but when that didn’t occupy him, he was
meant to help advertise my nation a little. Now rumors of
the Dungeon were spreading even to little country towns,
places not big enough for a Free Guild post.
“So you don’t think it’ll be too late if we wait for some
more talented challengers to travel here from afar?”
“Exactly. We’ve only just kicked this off. In my personal
opinion, we shouldn’t expect instant results! Better to
settle down and focus on our long-term future. And once
the noble ranks worldwide begin to invest in us, we can
expect to see challengers ranked B and above before long.”
Mjöllmile certainly sounded passionate. Masayuki gave
him some appreciative nods, which made him visibly grin.
He must’ve been bursting to show off to the Hero.
But he did have a point. Maybe all Veldora’s and
Ramiris’s complaining was making me feel a needless
sense of urgency. Even Basson’s band was rated B as a
team. With their current equipment, the individual
members would rank about a C or C-plus at best, not
exactly outstanding. Once we started seeing single party
members ranked B or above, I figure they’d be used to
labyrinth work without too many hints. Money bought you
safety in this maze, so even if we didn’t walk them through
every step, I’m sure they’d be able to figure things out
through their own experiences.
“Right. Guess there’s no need to panic, then.”
The labyrinth was generating a lot of interest. There
were magic crystals, as well as other materials, to harvest
from fallen monsters. A lot of people would enter the
labyrinth as a way to earn a little spending money, no
doubt. And the nobility was even more eager to dive in, it
seemed, including some very sensible ones who’d enlisted
adventurers back home to go conquer the Dungeon for
them. Those kinds of adventurers wouldn’t let greed steer
them off course—they’d fully prepare, set up goals, and
execute a plan of action. They’d be the minority, for sure,
but we figured their numbers would grow in time.
“So what should we do now?” Veldora asked.
“We have a front desk set up in the first floor. Maybe we
could offer some guided experiences?” I said.
“Experiences? What d’you mean by that?”
Ramiris wasn’t the only confused-looking one.
“I mean,” I explained, “we could set up a training area
that lets you test things out a little. Teach people about
traps, have them train in battle with monsters, those kinds
of things. That’s a lot more meaningful than just giving out
tips, isn’t it?”
I’d also like to set up a gym of sorts, to help us train all
the new Tempest recruits we’ve seen lately. It was
impossible to get accidentally killed in the labyrinth, so I
think it’d be pretty useful to have.
Then a rather unexpected person offered their
agreement.
“In that case, maybe you could offer some courses in
conquering the labyrinth, too.”
It was Masayuki nonchalantly chiming in. I looked at
him, surprised.
“Oh, should I not have butted in?”
“No, no, you’re fine!”
“Ah, well, good. This is a topic I could contribute to a
little bit more, so I thought I’d speak up.”
,motives.
Shuna’s smile had disappeared, and Benimaru was so
angry that he was now frozen in place. Soei was about
ready to whip out the sword he had hidden on him, and
weapons in the chamber were gonna be real hard to
explain later. I was just as livid as them—in fact, I was so
far gone, I almost wanted to laugh. That was how I
remained coolheaded enough to ask the question.
But the results were pretty lacking.
“Yep. You’re the one. He said that idiot’s name was
Rimuru!”
No mistake, then. Which meant I was safe doing him in,
but…
“…Look. Can you quit it with that? I dunno what you
want, but do you think you’ll get away with that kind of
lawlessness in front of all these witnesses?”
This wasn’t something I could really say after bashing up
that desk, but that was then. Let’s use the law as a weapon
to chase this freak away, because otherwise, I really might
kill him—and if I didn’t, I feared Benimaru or someone else
would lose it.
But the large man kept at it.
“Moron! This is my big chance! Once I knock you around
and put this on you, all of you monsters will be under our
command!”
Uh, what? Knock me around? Under his command?
What’s he talking about? Maybe I really was a moron,
because I didn’t understand him at all…
Understood. This fool is saying that he will defeat you and
make you follow his commands.
Yeah, I know! If you keep explaining things with a
straight face like that, I really will look like an idiot.
And what’s that in the man’s hand? It was none other
than an Orb of Domination, the very artifact I saw in use
back when Milim pretended to be hypnotized. It looked
real, but would that work on me?
Understood. It is impossible to rule over my lord with the
Orb of Domination.
That’s a relief.
I don’t know where this lumbering man found it, I
thought, but I’d better break it before it puts anyone in
danger.
I stood up from my seat. It must’ve woken the chairman
from his stupor, because he started shouting in a panic.
“W-wait, Lord Rimuru! This is some kind of mistake. No
one in the Council is sponsoring this! Please, confirm it
with Lady Hinata if you wish! She’s an impartial party!”
He was respectful toward me, and I didn’t think he was
lying. Hinata didn’t say anything about this; in fact, she
warned me to stay on guard. I didn’t think it’d be this in-
your-face stupid, but for now, I couldn’t do much except sit
back and see how things went.
The chairman wasn’t my enemy. Neither was Hinata.
And I had a lot of allies among the councillors as well.
“I know nothing about this! What is going on here?”
“Who sent you here?”
“Those soldiers’ armor bears the emblem of the Englesia
royal family. Is Englesia instigating this?”
I could hear them shouting above the confused
representative. Clearly, they couldn’t have been involved.
This wasn’t something the Council hatched—it was the
work of a smaller group gone clearly out of control.
Amid the chaos, one person made a coolheaded decision.
That was Hinata. When the chairman stated her name, she
stood up and stepped between the large man and me.
“Sir Reiner, what is the meaning of this?”
Reiner, was it? If Hinata knew him, was he famous
around here?
“Do not come in here without permission! We are in the
middle of a Council session. Soldiers like you are not
allowed!”
Emboldened by Hinata’s actions, the chairman began
yelling at the group as well. But instead of Reiner, one of
the councillors answered him—Count Gaban of Englesia, I
think his name was.
“Ha-ha-ha! Worry not, Chairman Leicester. I called them
in here to discipline that lawbreaker over there.”
Gaban was all smiles from his seat in the second tier,
close to the chairman.
“Sir Gaban, have you gone mad?!”
The chairman’s face went red as he shouted. I could see
why. If a fellow councillor was involved, that kind of
prevented the chairman from claiming the Council wasn’t
in on this. And as long as we had an impartial observer in
Hinata, this ridiculous farce could very well benefit me. I
hated all this verbal abuse but decided to weather it for a
bit.
“Sir Gaban! I was not informed of this!!”
This was Representative Johann Rostia, a prince,
screaming now. He was among the more decent
councillors, not placed under spiritual interference. I
remember the disgusted look on his face when things first
went awry. Looks like he was siding with me here—I
presumed he was on the pro-admission side.
“Everyone, please, calm down. I know that we all fear
the demon lord Rimuru. Am I wrong? And Sir Reiner here is
the strongest man in all of Englesia. He is here to defeat
Rimuru, rule over him, and make this member of the
Octagram into his personal pawn. And with him…comes
Veldora!!”
Even with the other councillors telling him off, Gaban
remained unaffected, using his seat to formally declare
hostilities against me. Several councillors shouted their
agreement.
If it was getting to this point, I no longer had any reason
to hold back…but the situation was progressing so fast, I
was getting left in the dust.
“I-impossible!”
“Unforgivable! How dare you disrespect the Council!”
“Indeed! Are you ignoring the will of the Council and
prioritizing your own motives instead?”
Even more councillors stood up and began airing their
grievances.
This was starting to look ominous. Some of the
representatives didn’t look well, hanging their heads. Given
Gaban’s dauntless behavior, he probably had another trick
up his sleeve. And I was right.
“Order, please, gentlemen. What my knight Reiner says
is true. And now the demon lord’s been kind enough to
come visit us. How could we afford not to use this
opportunity?!”
With these words, a delicate-looking man strode into the
chamber. This blond-haired figure wasn’t a councillor but
certainly acted like their boss. I thought I detected a
murmur of surprise among the Council; I could guess he
was pretty high up. But the next moment:
“Prince Elrick, what is going on here? I thought I advised
you to refrain from any foolish behavior…” Hinata
confirmed it for me.
Apparently, this was the honest-to-goodness prince of
this nation—and not even a council could be rude around a
prince. No wonder there was so much consternation in the
chamber.
So was this Prince Elrick the mastermind behind all this?
He had incited at least a few councillors, by the looks of it.
“Hinata, I am disappointed in you. You’ve grown fearful
of the demon lord and abandoned your post as guardian of
humankind.”
“…What?” came the cold, low-pitched reply.
Wow. He really pissed her off. Now I wasn’t sure I
needed to act at all.
“Enough back talk, Hinata. All right? You may be the
leader of the paladin forces or what have you, but there’s
no possible way you could best me, the head general of the
Englesia royal knight corps. You can’t even beat that wispy
weakling of a demon lord—instead you lick each other’s
wounds. What a laugh! I bet you wet your pants running
from him, didn’t you?”
That vulgar smile was still on Reiner’s face as he picked
a fight with Hinata. Oh, man. Even I could feel the blood
draining from my face.
“You…”
“Hee-hee-hee! Can’t even reply, can you? I’m assuming
I’ve hit the nail on the head? Well, Ms. Crusader captain…
That’s a ceremonial title I presume you obtained by
exercising your womanly wiles on that dirty old cardinal?
Yes, I’m sure it was a sorry fight indeed between you and
that demon lord. And a demon lord with no interest in
killing his adversary? Don’t make me laugh!”
Oh, now I’m taking the heat again. I really wish he’d
stop.
“But I’ll hand it to you, Hinata. You are attractive. If
you’ll be my lady, I promise I’ll take good care of you as a
concubine. You know?”
Ohhh, man. Now he’s dead.
Hinata’s expression didn’t change. She was the cool,
reserved beauty she always was. But the colder she looked
on the outside, the more her insides raged like bubbling
magma. Her patience amazes me, it really does. I would’ve
lost
,He grinned. He was adapting faster than I thought, but
then again, he always was bold like that.
“What kind of classes, though?”
Would we have a big band of adventurers sit down in our
meeting hall? Setting up times to give a rundown on the
labyrinth seemed worthwhile.
“You know, kind of like video game tutorials.”
“Tu…torials? What are those?”
“It sounds like a dessert. Is it good?”
Veldora and Ramiris pounced on the unfamiliar word. I
assumed Veldora had the vocabulary to know it, but maybe
not. Languages in this world translated pretty well in my
mind, but that auto-translate function only worked if both
members of a conversation had a common understanding of
the topic.
If Veldora didn’t know what it was, Ramiris certainly had
no chance. So Masayuki and I had to explain the concept of
a game tutorial.
“I was picturing something like an obstacle course.”
“Yes, like Rimuru said, I think it’s important you
experience some of the basic moves you’re expected to
know before you enter the labyrinth. If we offer quick
rundowns on the basics and divide it into missions, I think
that’ll help adventurers retain knowledge better…”
Adventurers wouldn’t gain much from lengthy lectures.
A training ground available to all wouldn’t see a lot of use
apart from the hard cores. So went Masayuki’s logic—and
why he thought a mission-based structure was a good idea.
Before being admitted inside, challengers would get to
complete a simple set of missions, ensuring they had the
barest knowledge required to challenge the labyrinth.
Veldora and Ramiris listened on, looking more and more
convinced.
“Yes, that may just work. For my part, allowing this
cavalcade of fools to tumble in and die simply bores me. Let
us grant them a training area, so their skills can be at least
somewhat up to snuff.”
“Yeah, I think so, too! ’Cause if Milim saw this, she’d be
so angry that she’d send all these challengers up into the
clouds!”
They seemed all for it. And so did Mjöllmile.
“And perhaps after this ‘tutorial,’ we could offer them a
line of Tempest-brand weapons and armor to try their hand
at. And if some challengers are facing more difficulty
deeper down, a set of tougher missions could perhaps be of
some benefit?”
This was some really helpful feedback. In fact, maybe we
could even release a guidebook. It’d help advertise the
town. It could be fun to have some qualified writer tackle
that task for me.
Regardless, this lack of labyrinth experience was killing
our challengers’ efficiency. Let’s give them at least a few
instruments to work with. Otherwise, we’d never find
anyone capable of handling Floor 50 and below, when the
difficulty really started to ramp up. Plus, for people who
really wanna get serious, we could even offer a few
“experiences” that get down to the nitty-gritty of Dungeon
survival.
Of course, the real Dungeon began at Floor 50, and at
first, we planned for Hinata’s Crusaders to be our main
customers for those levels. For now, at least, we couldn’t
expect much of anything from our adventurers, so Ramiris
and Veldora would need to be content having the paladins
to toy with.
Thus, we decided to renovate Floor 1 into a general
training area. I also made sure to provide a separate
entrance and exit for our new soldiers, in addition to the
one for Dungeon challengers.
“Yes, that does sound like a good idea. Right. I’ll make it
this instant!”
Ramiris was ready to start work, and since we were all
in agreement, I was about to wrap up the meeting. But:
“Oh, wait a second, please. There’s something else I’ve
noticed.”
Masayuki spoke up again, his eyes sparkling.
“So right now, the only inns and taverns are in the safe
zones, right? Don’t you think we ought to offer them on
each floor instead? And it’s kind of a pain if there’s no
toilets or anything. If you can connect different spaces
together anyway, I think it’d be nice to set up a door near
the stairways to each floor or something that leads to these
facilities. Some adventurers aren’t even bringing a sleeping
bag with them, so even if you charged a premium, I think
you’d get a lot of customers, you know?”
What?
Is this kid a genius?!
And toilets, huh? I no longer had any need for them, so it
completely slipped my mind. All this useful feedback was
flooring me. I turned to Ramiris; she confidently nodded
back.
“Yes, Masayuki! I’ll take that advice, too!”
“Ah, Sir Masayuki, your observational skills astound me.
Such insight!”
“Mm-hmm! I’ll get rid of the safe zones and set up a door
leading to a rest stop near each stairway!”
It was kind of like setting up a vending machine selling
toilet-paper packets at high prices next to a train-station
bathroom that had no paper on hand. Unfair? Yes—but
extremely effective. Masayuki’s insight really was
sensational.
“Well,” I said with a smile, “if you have any other
thoughts in mind, don’t be shy about sharing them.”
Masayuki pondered for a few moments, no doubt
recalling all the video games he’d played.
“Hmm… Could we maybe have a portable save point you
can only use once? I was lucky enough to make it to Floor
10, but now that you’ve removed the trapdoors, I think it’s
taking a lot more time to reach that point. This isn’t a game
to the challengers, so I think the time commitment involved
is making things a lot harder as well.”
Yes… That’s fair, too. I had to agree with him. The way
things were, a journey to Floor 10 would take several days.
With his previous idea, we had stumbled upon the notion of
making money off extended stays in the labyrinth. Maybe
we should think more along these lines?
“Mmm, yes, that child is on to something! I was thinking
the very same thing. Humans are such fragile little
creatures, so we need to offer a bit of a helping hand.”
Veldora was the first to offer agreement. And who was
the very person who designed this hellscape of a dungeon
for fragile little humans anyway?
“Well, I can certainly set up disposable save points! But
wouldn’t it be more profitable to have adventurers stay at
inns?”
So implementation wasn’t a problem. Man, whenever the
topic turned toward money, Ramiris was sharp as a tack. I
was surprised she had something useful to say.
“No, Lady Ramiris, not necessarily. We should actually
price them on the high side. If they don’t have any pressing
business, they can always stay at an inn, but I think a lot of
people would need to regularly report back to their patrons
or whatever. That, and I think some people would want to
carry them around as extra insurance, in case something
unexpected happens in the labyrinth. It could help sell our
return whistles as well.”
Mjöllmile was keen on this, too. I think he sensed a
business opportunity. And he was right—you could use
them in many different ways. If you were spending several
days in the labyrinth at once, you may want to know what’s
going on outside. Plus, the idea was to attract mercenaries
hired by the nobility going forward, and they may need to
file regular reports with their bosses.
And also…
“In my case, my companions beat him pretty easily for
me, but the save point on the tenth floor’s protected by a
powerful monster, right? I think a lot of people would want
to use a save point before they challenge that guy.”
I nodded deeply at Masayuki. To a gamer, saving before
you tackle a boss—or a floor guardian, in this case—was
common sense. I recalled moments when I skipped that
vital step before the final boss, only to lose several hours’
worth of play. Sad accidents like that can be laughed away
because it’s only a game, but how frustrating would it be if
that happened in real life?
“Right,” I said. “Thinking about it, maybe we’re being a
little too unkind.”
Veldora and Ramiris nodded their agreement at me.
“Boy… Ah, right, your name was Masayuki? The advice
you provide is quite helpful, yes.”
“Yeah! I’m really amazed! You sure are an otherworlder,
aren’t you? Just
,like Rimuru! It’s gonna be great working
with you, Masayuki!”
Somewhere along the line, Masayuki had been accepted
as a peer.
“Now, there’s no need to spoil anyone past Floor 50, I
don’t think. But in the floors that won’t entertain too many
veteran adventurers, I think it’d be a good idea to at least
go a little easy.”
And now Masayuki was advising them as a full-fledged
labyrinth administrator. That adaptability is probably his
greatest asset of all, I think, and I had no objections to his
take.
“All right. So let’s set up a rest stop before the stairway
on each floor. When you reach it, you can pay a fee or
something to gain access to part of Floor 95.”
“And we’ll set up an inn and tavern down there?”
“Right, right. I’m not gonna open up the elven lounge to
the general public—that’s still members only—but we could
easily set up something similar for adventurers. And don’t
forget—we’ll charge a premium for it!”
“Hee-hee-hee! Oh, I understand, believe me, I do.”
As a rule, prices are high in tourist sites. There’s a soda
and coffee vending machine at the summit of Mount Fuji,
but you’re gonna be paying the equivalent of five bucks for
a soda. There’s nothing like eating a cheap box lunch at the
peak, but while something like that’s never gonna be
gourmet cuisine, if you purchase it on the mountain itself,
you can bet it’s gonna go for four-star restaurant prices. So
it’s a given that the facilities inside the labyrinth will be
pricier than their equivalents outside.
Now the little town we had going on Floor 95 would be
more useful than ever.
“But can you really craft disposable save points like that,
Ramiris?”
“Absolutely no problem there! Easy-peasy! There are
these things called Recording Crystals, and they’re fine for
disposable use.”
The item Ramiris produced was actually quite handy. You
could use it anywhere in the labyrinth, and it worked
exactly like a regular save point. Add yourself to a
Recording Crystal, and the next time you die, you’ll be able
to restart from where you saved. If you use a return whistle
to exit the Dungeon, the next time you go in, you’ll pick
things up from your Recording Crystal. That held true even
if the structure of the labyrinth itself changes—you
wouldn’t reappear in the exact same location, but you’d get
transported to the nearest safe place, kind of.
“We can sell those at high prices, too, indeed.”
“Well, actually, I’d like to distribute those a little more
widely.”
“How about we mix them in with the rarer items in
treasure chests?”
The discussion was humming now.
“Kwaaah-ha-ha-ha! Now I have more to look forward to!”
“Oh, I wouldn’t expect anything to change too quickly,
but I do think we’ll see fewer challengers give up.”
Even Veldora and Masayuki were excitedly joining in.
This was working out well. We were tackling our problems,
addressing them, and debating together to come up with
solutions.
Right. That was certainly a worthwhile meeting.
Floor 1 would now house a training area to help people
learn the ABCs before tackling the Dungeon, as well as a
place for general announcements. We’d provide virtual
“missions” for visitors to try out, helping them acquire the
minimum knowledge necessary to survive. They were free
to undertake this training—or not, as the case may be.
Forcing the challengers into it wouldn’t help much. All the
risks fell on their shoulders, besides.
We would also set things up so that you couldn’t die in
the first floor, either. You never know; we might get some
crazy adventurer in here causing problems, and I don’t
want our staff in any danger. Besides, I wanted people to
experience for themselves what death was like in this
space. We’d made it so you were instantly revived on the
spot, so maybe it’d be a fun place for kids as well.
For the more advanced challengers, we’d also prepare a
room for battle training against a few different types of
monsters. We’d put bracelets on the monsters we captured
for the purpose, so they could be revived again and again—
that way, people could learn how to fight and polish their
battle skills. In addition, there was a large gymnasium-style
area for the use of our nation’s new soldiers. Maybe, on
occasion, it’d be fun to capture a whole bunch of monsters
and stage a large-scale group battle in there.
Things would begin in earnest starting with Floor 2. But
from there until Floor 4, we got rid of all the insta-death
traps and downgraded the rank of the monsters wandering
the halls from E to F. The rooms would have just one D-
ranked creature, and in the chests they guarded, we’d toss
in Low Potions and other useful labyrinth-conquering tools.
Equipment and other high-market items would begin
appearing on Floor 5.
So we worked on adjustments like these, recalibrating
the Dungeon’s overall difficulty. That should help people
advance a bit faster starting tomorrow. Video games hold
closed beta sessions all the time, after all; maybe launching
without a rehearsal wasn’t such a great idea.
…I mean, we did do some testing, but our test party was
six people from Shion’s Team Reborn, so the feedback we
got wasn’t particularly useful. They had no trouble
storming all the way down to Floor 40, before we had the
tempest serpent serving as that level’s boss wipe them out.
Thanks to that, I had the mistaken notion that the
labyrinth’s difficulty level was just right. The traps and
minion-level foes were no sweat to them as they breezed
their way downward. Based on Team Reborn’s progress, we
figured everything was okay—with a little experience, folks
would be hitting Floor 50 soon, no doubt.
We needed to select our testers a little more carefully.
Shion personally trained the members of Team Reborn, and
I guess they’re far more talented than I thought. But we
could tackle that later.
“So does that round out the issues? Anything else to
bring up?”
I lobbed out the question, already happy enough with
this discussion. Everyone had pitched in, and I figured we
were done for the day, but…
“Can I say something?” Mjöllmile asked.
“Oh? Something else?”
“Yes. More to do with labyrinth administration, but…”
Ah yes, something about advertising or revenues? I had
my concerns about that as well. It was only day three, of
course, so I wasn’t expecting to rake it in yet. But Ramiris’s
eyes were practically shining at the mention of the topic.
It’s almost hilarious how money-obsessed of a fairy she is.
“Ha-ha! We’ve only just started making back our
investment,” Mjöllmile said with a laugh, as if defending
himself against her. Then his expression grew more serious.
“No, I wanted to report to you about our advertising. In
order to attract the nobility’s attention, I’ve calculated the
amount of the reward purse we should offer. What do you
think about a hundred gold coins?”
Oh?
“And that’s gonna be paid in…?”
“We’ll use one stellar gold coin, of course.”
Glad to see Mjöllmile’s reading my mind on that. I had
learned from our mistake last time; I needed to get our
hoard of stellars changed out. And a hundred gold coins
would be about…what, around a hundred thousand dollars?
“That’s not too little, is it?”
It was a fortune to your average peasant, but it didn’t
seem like enough to motivate a noble who’s probably
swimming in money. Sure, adventurers can pick up magic
crystals and rare items along the way, but a hundred gold
didn’t seem quite enough for all the effort.
But Mjöllmile simply grinned at me. “Hee-hee-hee! I
understand your doubts. But I’ve spread the word that this
reward would be given to whoever can make it past Floor
50. We’ll award it to the first party each month to achieve
the feat. Manage it solo, and you earn the entire purse;
work as a party, and you’ll divide it up among yourselves.
And that’s not the only reward…”
As he explained, he had also attached prize money to the
boss monsters on every tenth floor.
On Floor 10, that would be a black spider,
,a B-ranked
creature. The first five teams to defeat it would receive
three gold coins. Floor 20 housed an evil centipede, rated
B-plus, spewing Paralyzing Breath across a broad range—
pretty decently strong. The first five teams to beat him got
five gold.
Down on Floor 30, we had an ogre lord, another B-plus,
along with five of his henchmen. Unlike Benimaru and his
kin, these were unintelligent creatures, violent and acting
strictly on instinct. Their physical strength was astonishing,
though, and they were capable of team warfare to some
extent, so tackling them with a fully equipped party was a
must. Beating them earned you ten gold, and again, we’d
award it to the first five winning parties.
After that, things begin to get serious. Floor 40, as
planned, housed an A-minus tempest serpent, boasting
extraordinarily powerful Poisonous Breath that could
instantly annihilate an unsuspecting party. Even an A-
ranked adventurer on Gaiye’s level would have serious
trouble defeating it solo. Taking the serpent down was
worth twenty gold coins, awarded to the first three parties
who managed it, but I doubted we’d be giving out that
prize too often.
Meanwhile, on Floor 50, I was planning to have Bovix
and Equix take turns serving as floor guardian. They had
evolved into magic-born ranked above A, so only a small
handful of fighters stood a chance. Make it past that floor,
and you earned the big one-hundred-gold prize—a big step
up but merited given the difficulty spike.
“All right. That’s actually a pretty well-thought-out plan.
It oughtta make for some good advertising, too. Do you
think it’ll help encourage the nobles to compete with one
another?”
“Precisely, my lord. Announcing the prize winners each
month will encourage competition. And challengers can
only win a prize once; they can’t be awarded the same prize
multiple times, so we can keep things from getting too
competitive.”
Makes sense. If you could only get it one time, there was
no motivation for people to “farm” bosses strictly for
money. This ensured the same small group of people
wouldn’t hog all the prizes each month—and since each
award had a strict maximum, we could count them as fixed
costs in our accounting.
“So do you think we can make a profit doing that?”
“That will not be a problem, no. Based on preliminary
calculations from the past three days, I think we could even
afford to increase the prizes a little.”
Compared to our earnings, it was pocket change, but the
prizes would help encourage competition and speculation
among challengers without hurting our bottom line. It was
a brilliant strategy. Besides, nobody was going to zoom past
Floor 50 anytime soon, so I figured our payouts would be
on the low side for a while to come.
“In fact, if anything, perhaps we could have Sir Masayuki
beat Floor 50 and play that up in our advertising…”
“Huh?!”
“With your mettle, I’m sure it’s only a matter of time, Sir
Masayuki.”
Aha. That Mjöllmile, always looking for another angle.
He seemed to have the plan pretty well worked out. Let’s
have him keep with it.
“Ooh, I like that. It’ll boost Masayuki’s reputation
further, even as it advertises our Dungeon for us. Let’s
deploy that once things slow down a little, maybe.”
“That’s just what I was thinking as well. How nice to see
we are of the same mind, Sir Rimuru, heh-heh-heh…”
“You’re always sharper than me at this, deh-heh-heh…”
We exchanged self-satisfied smiles.
“Um, if I could interject…”
Masayuki looked like he had something to say. I
pretended not to hear.
But Mjöllmile wasn’t done there. In fact, he was just
getting to his main topic.
“Now, Sir Rimuru, along those lines, I’m thinking about a
potentially even larger project!”
He flashed an evil grin, champing at the bit to reveal his
news. I was starting to like that smile a lot. It was proving
reliable.
“I’m all ears, Mollie. Go ahead.”
I gave him a friendly smile of my own.
“As I see matters, if we really want to impress the
nobility in the local area, I think we should announce that
anyone who survives the bottommost floor will earn a
hundred stellar gold coins!”
“…?!”
“Oh-ho?”
“What?!”
“Um, how much is that in yen?”
Maybe about one billion? And with the cost of living as
low as it is here, it might be worth even more.
“Pretty bold, huh, Mollie?”
“Hee-hee-hee! Such a generous reward should motivate
any reluctant challengers to spring into action. They’re all
bound to hire adventurers to conquer the labyrinth.”
And that means even more money would be changing
hands. The more people gather someplace, the more
prosperous it gets. If we can drive people’s interest,
potential customers who weren’t interested before may hop
on just so they’re not left behind.
“But—but that’s a lot of money!” Ramiris shouted,
looking concerned. But the confident Mjöllmile wasn’t
perturbed.
“And who was the master of this labyrinth again?”
He gave Veldora a glance as he lodged the almost-
taunting question.
“Heh-heh-heh… Kwaahh-ha-ha-ha! It is I, Veldora the
Storm Dragon, the very precipice of the draconic races!!”
Veldora made no attempt to hide his opinion of himself.
“Huh?! Veldora the Storm Dragon? That name sounds
familiar…”
Masayuki looked a bit pensive about something as
Mjöllmile villainously nodded.
“Yes, I’m fully aware of that, Sir Veldora. And I’m also
fully aware that not a single soul is capable of felling you in
battle.”
“Of course not. Mjöllmile, you are truly an intelligent
man! Kwah-ha-ha-ha!”
“Heh-heh-heh… No, no. I’m simply leveraging what I’ve
learned observing Sir Rimuru.”
What? Me?
As Veldora and Mjöllmile shared an echoing laugh, I
thought over his proposal. We were offering a hundred
stellars, a ridiculous amount—but that required conquering
the final floor. In other words, beating Veldora. Nope. Not
gonna happen. It seemed almost like a swindle to me, but it
wasn’t a lie, either. Besides, we still weren’t sure right now
whether anyone would even make it to Floor 100.
“Yeah, I do think our labyrinth is well-nigh
unconquerable.”
“Right, right.”
“That’s bleedingly obvious.”
“Precisely. Floor 50 is one thing, but the difficulty
beyond that is simply unimaginable to me. We have literal
dragons! Where will you find an adventurer who can slay a
dragon?”
Mjöllmile looked a little floored. The concept even
exasperated someone as bold and driven by greed as he.
Our labyrinth was well defended, to say the least.
“I doubt we’d ever have to pay out those hundred
stellars.”
“No. That’s the whole idea. This is just bait for the
nobility, so I humbly believe we can be a bit lavish with the
figures we throw around. I understand the paladins will be
trying their luck, but I do look forward to seeing the
results.”
He left it unsaid, but I’m sure he didn’t think they could
reach the bottom. I agreed with him. The money figure
shocked me at first, but thinking about it with a cool head,
we didn’t have to worry about anyone actually claiming it.
“Mollie, let’s go with it. Make it happen!”
“Very well, my lord.”
“And try to get as many people coming here to take the
challenge as you can.”
“Let’s tout it up as much as possible, then! We could call
it the Demon Lord’s Challenge!”
Would that work as advertising?
…Actually, wait a second. If I was going to keep calling
myself demon lord, there was a good chance that reckless,
suicidal people would keep on trying to fight me. It was a
pain to deal with each and every one of them—so why don’t
I let them take a crack at me if they conquer Floor 100, or
something…?
Yeah. Let’s go with that.
“In fact, tell everyone that if they beat the challenge, I’ll
give them an opportunity to fight me. That applies to you,
too, Masayuki, so if people tell you to take me on, try to
change the subject or something, okay?”
“All right. Because honestly, I have no intention of
fighting you at all. Thanks.”
“Oh, I know. Well, Mollie, you have my official
permission.
,Have at it!”
“At once, my lord. I’ll just excuse myself, then.”
Mjöllmile is so dedicated to his work. Once the
conversation died down, he stood up, offered each of us a
quick bow, and left the room.
We could have ended the meeting there, as we all
watched him go, but Masayuki looked concerned about
something. Curious, I decided to inquire.
“What’s up? Something on your mind?”
“Well, about fighting…I guess people think I’m taking a
wait-and-see approach, but I really am gonna have to do
that fight sometime soon, aren’t I…?”
Fight…? Ah, the promise he made during the
tournament?
“You mean against Bovix?”
“Yeah… After what I said in front of that huge crowd, I
can’t really escape it. But if I fight him, I’m absolutely
gonna lose…”
I’m sure he would. Masayuki’s unique skill was about as
unique as they came, but it wouldn’t be much help in actual
combat. Although maybe it would be, come to think of it. It
let him win without fighting, after all.
But we would need to consider that Bovix battle. The
crowd truly believed Masayuki could win, and so did
Mjöllmile for that matter. Masayuki wasn’t shy about
playing himself up in the arena, either. It was too late to
say never mind.
“Maybe you could train with our kids while Hinata is
here?”
“That sort of thing would kill me! All I want is to live in
peace, you know?”
He smiled briskly as he stated that rather sad fact. I
thought at one point that he needed someone to teach him
a lesson, but as a kid who came from Japan at the most
peaceful point in its history, of course he wasn’t gonna be
this belligerent wild man. I’m not unlike him, if you think
about it.
“Well, I can’t have you lose either way, so let me think
about that a little.”
“Will you? Thanks, Rimuru!”
“Sure. Just give me a hand when I need it, okay?”
“Of course!”
Masayuki was being cooperative, and his reputation was
helping me out a lot right now. If Bovix beat him, I stood to
lose a great deal. It was a thorny problem, but we’d have to
do something about it. I could try to reason with Bovix, but
that didn’t seem fair to me. I’ll work on it.
We chatted for a little while longer before I wrapped up
this emergency meeting. The adjustments to the labyrinth
were completed before the end of the day.
So we excitedly continued our watch over the Dungeon.
Personally, thanks to the things Masayuki pointed out, I
felt like the labyrinth had gotten a lot easier. But
considering Mjöllmile’s warnings, I didn’t think it had
gotten too easy or anything. How would people react?
First off, of course, there were always idiots who didn’t
bother listening to the instructions. They just breezed right
along, ignoring the missions completely. They didn’t get far
into the ensuing floors, of course, but they just kept on
trying, nonetheless. What drove them to do that? Their
employers? Their pride? No, the answer was nothing so
noble. They had a more calculating reason than that.
When we debuted the labyrinth, the Rare-level sword
that Basson’s party grabbed from a treasure chest was
apparently a truly excellent piece in their mind. I guess
they saw it in a much different way from me.
Rare, in this world, referred to superior magisteel-forged
gear that had evolved to exhibit unique capabilities. The
magisteel our nation produced was made by taking the
magic ore from our high orcs in the mountains and
exposing Veldora’s magicules to it. Simply storing it inside
the labyrinth made the process happen by itself. This gave
us an easy supply of high-quality steel, and we could
liberally use it in our own weapons and armor.
Unlike the gear circulating around the Western Nations,
we could craft items made out of nothing but pure
magisteel. The difference came down to the materials
themselves, so even the swords distributed to our regular
forces could be classified as Special in make, several times
better than the equipment most labyrinth challengers ran
around in. Kurobe’s workshop apprentices handled
equipment production for our army, a good dozen of them
or so by this point, hammering away daily under Kurobe’s
careful instruction—and even their gear was equivalent to
Special, a level above the Normal stuff sold across the
Western Nations.
Now their goods were being placed into our treasure
chests. The production failures were disposed of, and
things deemed worthy of actual use were brought into the
labyrinth. We had a wide range of quality in this gear, and
some of it really was excellent. Basson had gotten his
hands on something that only barely qualified as Rare. You
usually had a hundred-to-one chance at one of those, and as
odds went, maybe it was an enticing offer for a lot of
people.
By the way, even items from Kurobe’s workshop
dismissed as failures could be appraised at the Rare level.
They may look like quality pieces on the surface, but if
Kurobe called it a failure, it was a failure. “There’s a clear
difference,” he’d tell me.
So I looked into this a bit more, and it led to a discovery.
Even with gear in the same class, there can be individual
differences in capabilities—something Kurobe had picked
up on and used to craft his definitions of success and
failure.
I decided to compare two Rare-level swords, one from
Kurobe and one from an apprentice. The difference was
obvious, something I noticed only because my Analyze and
Assess skills had improved. If Kurobe hadn’t pointed it out,
I’m not sure I would’ve picked up on it.
Different how? Let me give an example. Let’s say I made
a copy of one of Kurobe’s works. The results, of course,
would be in the same class—but like I said before, I can’t
completely copy all its capabilities. They may look the
same, but what I produce is still an inferior copy. That’s the
difference.
Maybe this happens because I don’t have the
blacksmithing skills of Kurobe. But what I can say here is
that even weapons come in different levels. Maybe a
weapon seller would never notice, to say nothing of an
amateur, but I feel like I can tell the difference between
these levels now.
To someone who stakes their life on these weapons,
differences in capability are important.
In this world, you never knew when monsters might
attack you. High-quality weapons and armor were a kind of
lifeline. Kurobe’s presentation during the Founder’s
Festival must’ve generated a lot of buzz, enough to create a
deluge of requests for the goods we’d exhibited. We were
still considering how to handle that, but the plan was to
make a decision after investigating the market more.
The Rare equipment dropped by the boss on Floor 10
was the best that Kurobe’s apprentices could produce right
now. They were inferior to Kurobe’s own work but still on
the upper end of what’s generally available worldwide.
Adventurers naturally want quality, of course, and I could
see why Basson was so delighted. Even Normal weapons,
after all, could fetch over ten times the usual price if they
were good quality. Once you got into the Special realm,
that was more like fifty times. Rare? Obtaining one was a
matter of luck more than anything. There weren’t many
around to find, and realistically speaking, money can’t buy
them.
So it made sense that people were clamoring to enter
the labyrinth. And Basson and his gang were even
advertising for me at the taverns—“Heh-heh! Look at this,
all of you! A sword just as wonderfully powerful as I am!”
and so on. The fact that the Floor 10 boss dropped Rare
gear spread like wildfire among the challengers, then the
merchants, and then around the Free Guilds of every
nation. In an instant, people hoping to strike it rich were
beating a path to our labyrinth—and that’s what led to
where we are now.
I do have to thank Basson’s band for all the free
advertising, but you can’t just run in and grab Rare
equipment like it’s a trip to the convenience store.
Thus, the people who refused to take our guidance
began to lag behind those who completed our missions
