by Fuse
“Wowwww!! I haven’t eaten anything this good in suuuch a long time!”
Shuna smiled as she doled out a second serving. It was a darling little scene. One that was ruined by the bombshell Shion had for me.
“By the way, Sir Rimuru, I had been wondering—what was that present you gave to Lady Milim outside of town?”
Erk.
Aw, geez, Shion, why’d you have to bring that up all of a sudden?
“No! You can’t have any! That jar’s mine!”
Milim immediately tucked her jar of honey drops out of view. Sheesh. She could’ve just tossed it into Spatial Storage, but noooo.
“Oh, don’t worry, Lady Milim. Nobody’s thinking about taking your things at all,” Shuna said, smiling.
Yeah, I’d hope not. Nobody was suicidal enough in town to try it. And the moment she realized her honey wasn’t in danger, she grinned and resumed her meal—so completely defenseless, one would begin to wonder how demon lord-ly she really was, if at all.
Though Milim wasn’t really the problem. The problem was that people now knew about my secret honey stash.
“You know,” Shuna continued, “I have been noticing a rather fragrant scent around here lately. I had thought it belonged to you, Lady Milim, but was that what Sir Rimuru gave you, perhaps—”
Crap. I did not like her leading the witness like that. This was bad. Soei had his head turned aside, pretending not to be involved, but Benimaru was already giving all of us a curious look. There were six of us seated at the table: Benimaru, Soei, Milim, Shuna, Shion, and me. Shuna was the only one not there for my confrontation with Milim, so I couldn’t explain my way out of it.
Ah, such was my fate, I guess. I was hoping to keep it under wraps until we could figure out how to mass-produce it, but oh well. I took out some honey from my pocket and filled a nearby cup with it.
“Okay, well, this stuff is called honey. I got this as a substitute for sugar, but I can’t make very much of it yet, so I can’t give you all a supply.”
I directed them all to scoop some up with their fingers and give it a try.
“““Ah…?!”””
The looks on the two females’ faces were of abject shock. Soei just raised a single eyebrow, but Benimaru was already looking at me expectantly, hoping for more. Milim, of course, scooped up a bit herself, not that I invited her to. You already have your own, you greedy brat!
“So as you see, the honey tastes extremely sweet, but it also has a medicinal effect. In fact, it can cure almost any disease, but sometimes there can also be poison mixed in, so you need to be very careful extracting it. That’s not a problem if I’m doing it, but still.”
“And you think we can make a larger amount?”
“Not right now, no. I can produce maybe a single cup of this a week.” If I pushed Apito hard enough, we might be able to up that to three cups, but there was no pressing need to, so I let it slide. “I want to conduct more research into its makeup to evaluate it as a medicine, so there’s not a lot to spare for eating quite yet.”
This wasn’t a lie. My Analyze and Assess skill told me that this was a special-grade panacea. The rarity of the plants we extracted it from no doubt meant it had all kinds of astonishing benefits.
“Yes. The nectar we harvested from giant honeybee hives simply doesn’t compare to this. As a sweetener, it was fairly disappointing.”
Shion nodded. She was always a font of information about stuff like that, even if it didn’t directly connect to cooking. And she was right—giant honeybee nectar was more poisonous than sugary, making it ill-suited for food. I figured I could analyze it and extract something decent from it, but taming giant honeybees sounded like pretty tricky business to me anyway.
“If we could prepare a suitable garden for them and let that be their territory, I think we could get some pretty decent honey from them, though.”
“You think?” Shion said, finally seeing things my way.
“You said this could be a substitute for sugar,” Shuna asked, clearly curious. “Is sugar itself really this sweet?”
I could see Milim’s and Shion’s ears perk up at the question.
“It sure is. There’s no medicinal value, but it’s so sweet that people get literally addicted to it. You can use it in food, in drinks; all kinds of areas. We’ll be able to craft a great deal more food than before, once we have it,” I explained.
“Ah… I see. In that case, I will have us devote all our efforts to discovering this sugar, starting tomorrow. Shion…”
“Yes, Shuna. I promise you, I will stake my life on discovering this sweet plant for us all!”
“Yes! Very good!”
The three women gave one another firm nods. I wanted to ask why they’d stake their lives on this (and since when were they all best friends, too?), but it was fine for now. I took a final lick or two of the remaining honey, already assured that real sugar would be ours sooner than ever now.
With dinner wrapped up, I directed them all to the bath, my crowning achievement. The tub, made with the finest dwarven marble out there, was filled day and night to the brim with hot-spring water, ready to be used at any time.
Milim had joined us, meekly following along behind Shuna and Shion. Normally, I’d nonchalantly hop in the bath with them all in slime form, but that definitely didn’t feel right today. She’d be happier alone with the other females, and besides, I would need to discuss things with the ogres whenever Milim wasn’t around.
So I moved on to our meeting hall and gave a rundown of the day’s events to the people assembled there. “My goodness… I hardly know what to say. I never expected a demon lord to visit here on her own volition,” Rigurd said, shaking his head.
I could understand his position. I had never pictured this happening, myself.
“Well, I think it’ll be all right, though,” I said. “She’s promised not to start any fights in here, at least. Not without my permission.”
I wasn’t exactly confident about that, but I had little choice but to trust her on that count.
“Perhaps…but shouldn’t we be more worried about how the other demon lords will react?” Kaijin spoke up.
Hakuro and Benimaru nodded at this.
“How do you mean?” I honestly asked.
“Well, there are multiple demon lords out there, and they all work under a convoluted system of checks and balances. You and Lady Milim just declared each other allies out in the public square, and that basically means this town’s under the protection of Milim the demon lord. And normally, I suppose, that would be incredibly desirable, but…”
“…Sir Rimuru, you are leader of the Great Forest of Jura Alliance and ruler of the Jura-Tempest Federation,” Hakuro interjected. “I suppose the actions of today would seem, in the eyes of the other demon lords, to mean that the Forest of Jura has forged an alliance with Milim herself.”
“Yes!” Benimaru added. “It means that Milim, who hardly has any subjects of her own, suddenly has a much larger force backing her up. It shakes the foundation of the current power balance among the demon lords. One wrong move, I fear, and the entire forest could become subject to a major war.”
Hmm. Yes, I will admit to not thinking too deeply about it, but I suppose my decisions could wind up affecting the whole forest, huh? But… I mean…
“Practically speaking, though, none of us could stop Lady Milim if we wanted to, could we?”
Rigurd offered his opinion, and he was right. Even all of us at once would never have a chance. It left us with nothing but the most passive of approaches—waiting for her to grow bored and leave.
“To be frank,” Benimaru said, “her strength is on a totally different dimension from any of us. There is no point even debating whether we could beat her or not. None of us would be alive now were it not for Sir Rimuru’s quick thinking.”
“…Exactly. If other demon lords oppose her, I honestly like our chances against them more than her. Milim the demon lord is a walking cat
astrophe.”
Soei nodded at his compatriot’s honest feelings.
That largely settled it. There was nothing else to be done, and that was that. So how to handle Milim in the meantime…?
“In that case, I vote that we should leave the day-to-day handling of Lady Milim to her…ah, BFF, Sir Rimuru. All in agreement?”
“““Aye!!”””
Wha?! Dammit, Benimaru! But by the time I had the thought, I was too late. I was used to tossing the ball to someone else most of the time—this time, they did the same to me.
“Besides,” Hakuro said, “Lady Milim is one of the oldest and strongest of demon lords. A lord that we absolutely must not be hostile toward, one could say. For this issue, at least, I see little we can do besides let Sir Rimuru handle it.”
Way to drive the stake in like that. I didn’t think she was that dangerous, but so be it. I sighed. Nobody else seemed to know how to curry Milim’s favor, and since I was apparently a genius at handling children, I suppose it was up to me to help out. We now had a silent, but steadfast, agreement that the demon lord Milim was my problem.
Milim was already looking drowsy by the time she left the bath. Apparently, she was beside herself with excitement—few baths large enough to swim in existed in this world, so I couldn’t blame her. Most people had to make do with quick dips in cold water, and even nobility had to be content with hot water in cramped little tubs, I was told. Assuming you lived in a rich enough nation to have dedicated baths at all, which wasn’t always the case.
I was admittedly kind of picky about having this bath. Selfish of me, I know, but it had turned into a lovely facility. If people liked using it, I couldn’t be happier.
I asked Shuna to lead Milim to a guest bedroom and put her to sleep. There weren’t any Western-style beds here, just pseudo-tatami mats and futon mattresses on the floor. I worried that she’d have some complaints about that, but it wound up not being an issue. She immediately fell asleep, looking snug as a bug.
It was the demon lord’s first day and night in Tempest, and by and large, it could have turned out a lot worse. Of course, the whirlwind she was kicking up had only just begun.
We were busy as bees the next morning.
First, waking up Milim at sunrise wasn’t easy… “Why does a demon lord have to wake up early?!” she grumbled.
We managed to get her up and dressed. Her current outfit was just too exposed, so we prepared some other clothes for her the previous evening—just a quick outfit built from whatever we had around, but she was pretty enough that she looked just fine wearing anything.
“This is hard to move in.”
“Oh? Well, it looks nice. Isn’t that better for you?”
I made a decent attempt to mollify her, and her mood instantly improved. No complaints there. Children can be so simple like that sometimes.
Next up was breakfast. Something resembling bread, fruit jam, and milk—chilled cowdeer milk. I had been telling people about how good cow’s milk was, and this was close enough. That, plus some hot vegetable soup.
The jam used fruit that had been boiled, cooled, and then sealed in chilled jars. It used no additional sugar, and I wasn’t wholly sure what kind of fruit it was, but it was Shuna’s homemade recipe and quite a bit sweeter than I expected. It was more sour than sweet to my palate, but in a world so lacking in sugary food, this was still a rare luxury. Most people in town just had bread and the remaining vegetable soup for breakfast, so the jam was more reserved for honored guests, so to speak.
“Wowwwww!! This is incredible!” Milim gushed as she ate. Glad she liked it. I watched her go as I thought over a few things.
I didn’t particularly mind being the go-to guy for Milim-related issues, but should I really just be acting normal like this? Most of my work around town involved inspection—checking on construction sites, fields as they were being tilled, the weapon production workshop, our food storehouses. I’d discuss things with the supervisors of each location and nail down our future direction.
If any trouble happened around town, I’d sometimes stop by to arbitrate. With all these races living in the same space, we needed rules in place that everybody had to follow. It was one thing when this was just a village or settlement, but we were now a federation with a population in the tens of thousands, and the rule of law was more important than ever. I didn’t have enough time in the day to enact a ton of laws by myself, so the town still ran on a lot of general guidelines more than anything. Thus, if there was a difference of opinion or some other dispute bubbling, I was left to make the final decision.
Rigurd and the rest of my staff solved most issues for me, thankfully, so I didn’t hear about it unless it was something pretty serious. It seemed to me that this was on purpose—they made sure not to bother me about something unless it really was that important. It was surprising, seeing how well these monsters could cooperate with one another. I’m sure everyone had their complaints, but we now had a culture where, instead of acting out physically, people preferred to let me do the judging.
For today, at least, there were none of those problems to tackle. When there was, I’d be contacted about it at least a week in advance, giving me time to listen to both sides and everyone else time to gather evidence and such. Which meant that the only planned appointment for today was a quick stop by Gabil’s place.
I dared a quick glance at Milim. Would I be okay taking her into the cave? It was now filled with Vester’s valuable laboratory tools and experiments—a sort of federal research facility.
Suddenly, I had a good idea. Milim still had only a patchwork outfit on. If her stay here would be extending a while longer, we’d need to prepare several outfits for her. Which meant—
“Hey, Milim, once you’re done eating, you want to go get some clothes custom-made for you?”
“Why? Isn’t this good enough?”
“You’ll probably want more than one outfit. Besides, I think you’d look nice in something cuter anyway.”
“What? You have cute clothes?!”
“Sure. You can pick out whatever you like.”
“Perfect! Ahh, I should have known, Rimuru! This town has everything!”
The moment I brought it up, she was already dancing around in her seat. Perfect. That oughta buy me some time. Going into that gauntlet of a dress shop, it was easy to spend half a day without realizing it. I had experienced it for myself, being stuffed into outfit after outfit like a dress-up doll. Most of the designs were made for “fun” looks anyway, so I’m sure Milim would be able to find something she likes.
“Oh, Lady Milim is choosing some clothes? I’d be happy to join her.”
“Yeah, if you could, Shuna? I got an errand to run in the cave, so toss me a line with Thought Communication if something comes up.”
“Certainly.”
“Oh, you aren’t coming, Rimuru?”
“Ah, um, I already have some clothes, so. I’ll come back to see you once you’re all set, Milim, so feel free to select whatever you like and have ’em tailor it to your size. You could even have some new clothes made for you.”
“Ooh! Got it!”
Great. That went well. The moment she heard the magic phrase new clothes, her interest immediately launched her in that direction. It oughta keep her from starting a riot or genocide in my absence for a while.
She went off with Shuna to the production workshop after breakfast. Now I needed to get my own errand over with.
I headed for the Sealed Cave with Kaijin coming along.
“Were you all right after yesterday?” I asked Gabil, who was waiting for me. He seemed fine to me, but a cheap shot from a demon lord could lead to all kinds of aftereffects.
“No problem at all, sir!” he replied with a hearty laugh. “I am supremely confident in my body’s durability!”
He certainly acted like always, too. I breathed a sigh of relief as Vester gingerly came up to me.
“By the way, Sir Rimuru, I did file the re
port with King Gazel as well. I hope it was all right?”
A report about Milim was what he meant. I asked him to send one off yesterday. Our pact with Dwargon did include language about providing whatever support we could if danger befell one of us, and this definitely counted. There wasn’t much Dwargon could do, really, but it’d be polite to at least let them know and prepare for the worst.
“Not a problem. Did the communication crystal work all right?”
“It did, yes. It connected me to King Gazel almost immediately. All I said to him was that the demon lord Milim attacked and that you handled it, Sir Rimuru, but was that good enough?”
I could understand Vester’s concern. That terse report probably threw the Dwarven Kingdom into chaos, scrambling to collect whatever intel it could. Vester was probably being swamped with requests for more information.
“Well, we talked it over last night, and it was decided that I’d be taking care of Milim. The only conclusion we came to was that, uh, there really ain’t much else we can do right now. I can’t do anything besides warn him, but I figured it’d be nice to do that, at least. If they have any bright ideas, I’d love to hear them.”
“Yes, I am sure. The demon lord Milim is a class beyond all the others, as I understand…”
“Quite,” Gabil added. “The strongest in the world, as far as I am aware.”
Huh. Famous enough that even these two knew about her? Hakuro mentioned she was the oldest and strongest of demon lords as well, so Gabil couldn’t be lying.
But maybe this was a good thing, depending on how you looked at it. If every demon lord was such a monster, then no way was I ever going to keep my promise to Shizu and slay her nemesis. Milim being such an exceptional force meant that hey, maybe I had half a chance at offing your run-of-the-mill demon lord after all. The thought lightened my spirits a little.
The passiveness of our current approach notwithstanding, maybe we really would have better luck duking it out with the rest of them. On that point, at least, my staff agreed.
