by Fuse
At Gobta’s orders, the platoon began to move.
Nimbly dismounting his starwolf, Gobta strode over to follow Kabal’s lead as the other goblin riders directed their partners to divert their foe’s attention. The wolves attacked with their sharp fangs and their claws, and while neither found any play on its hard exoskeleton, their speed outclassed the spider’s, letting them take a secure stick-and-move approach.
The B-ranked starwolves couldn’t scratch a knight spider, but in terms of agility, they were an even match. So giving up on the direct approach, they shifted styles so their hobgoblin partners would take over on offense. Thanks to the able hands of Gobchi and the rest of Gobta’s crew, this let them slowly pile on damage.
“Dang, those spears of theirs are sharp. It looks like they can lengthen and shorten them at will, too.”
“They are. And they’re a measure sharper’n my greatsword, even. Maybe we coulda had a fightin’ chance if I had somethin’ like that, eh?”
Kabal muttered in wonder as he took a break to heal himself, and Yohm appeared beside him to take a break as well.
“I just can’t believe this. What are those wolves? Some kinda mutant from black wolves or gray wolves? And why do a bunch of hobgoblins have such incredible weapons, too? And why’re they so strong?!”
Fuze picked this moment to join them, still panting for breath and taken aback. Neither of his companions had a ready answer, so they settled down and began to watch.
Considering the brutal battle they’d just waged, it was hard to imagine what they were seeing now. The goblin riders were boldly attacking, or seemed to be anyway—although they appeared to be giving themselves a fairly large safety margin. None of them were damaged. Meanwhile, Gobta was the only one confronting the knight spider on foot, leaping this way and that to attract his foe’s attention. He didn’t have to fight for it. It seemed like he had a full grasp on every twitch of the spider’s legs.
“Man… That hobgoblin— Gobta, he said? Who the hell’s he, huh? And, like, even before that…” Yohm cut himself off.
There was a lot he wanted to ask, but he resisted. Now wasn’t the time. He wanted to catch every moment of this battle while it lasted.
Gobta busied himself with twisting, bounding, and dodging the spider’s attack. Hmm. Kinda slow. Compared to the wringer Hakuro puts me through, this is easy peasy.
Taking a closer look at the spider, he realized that it always stopped moving for a moment before unleashing one of its leg-pincer combos. The multi-leg attacks followed a set rhythm as well, making it simple to predict where they would stab next.
“Okay, let’s get this over ’n’ done with!”
With a single, spirited shout, he removed the shortsword from his waist and, with pinpoint accuracy, slashed at a small wound made by one of his goblin riders. One of the spider’s long, spear-like legs arced through the sky. It was sliced cleanly from its body.
“Dang!”
“Whoa, Gobta! That’s incredible!”
“Now that’s a shortsword. I think I’m in love with how it cuts!”
Gobta wasn’t one to ignore all the praise from his friends. It was forged by Kurobe for him, thanks to Rimuru’s promise. It was certainly no bargain-basement item from the local weapon shop—it was a masterpiece of a blade, crafted to be as sharp as possible.
It was also magic, imbued with a certain extra-effect thanks to Rimuru’s Deviant unique skill. When Gobta willed it in his mind, the blade would encase itself in ice, turning it into a jagged, frigid blade that could also be launched as an Icicle Lance. Gobta didn’t invoke it here; using magic took up a massive amount of his own magicules, so he couldn’t just whip it out on a whim. Kurobe had reminded him time and time again about how his ace in the hole should only be used when the time was right, and he followed that advice faithfully, never wasting his arsenal.
Besides, now he had a weapon even more effective than an Icicle Lance.
“This is even better!”
He held the sheath for the blade up high, still clenched in his left hand. He didn’t mean to sound like a braggart, but he undoubtedly looked it.
“A sheath…?”
Instead of answering Gido’s question, Gobta made his move. He pointed the sheath at the spider, hole first. The next moment, it emitted a sort of blackish-red glow.
The entire inside of the scabbard was lined with magisteel, with insulated electric wire wrapped around it like a solenoid. Energizing this wire with Dark Thunder—the skill that Deviant had granted it—created a powerful magnetic field, which then launched the bullet at the bottom of the scabbard out of the hole. A sort of coilgun, in other words.
It was called the Case Cannon, and while Rimuru had made it mostly for fun, Gobta was a huge fan.
The scabbard ejected a hunk of iron around two centimeters across. It made no sound, but the effects were dramatic. The spider writhed in intense pain, its mouth shivering and gnashing. The resulting otherworldly noises sounded like pure anguish. And why not? The shot had gouged out or flattened several of its eyes, which were now spurting out jets of blue liquid.
“Yow! That was great, Gobta!” one of the other goblins whooped.
The humans, meanwhile, had nothing to say. Not even Fuze could fully parse what had happened.
“—What the hell was that?!” he stammered out.
Gobta had other things on his mind.
“Well, we’re gonna have one heck of a feast today! There’s gotta be some great eatin’ on this spider!”
His eyes were on the knight spider—not as a foe but as a yummy piece of prey.
“Whoa, whoa, that’s an A-minus area boss! And you’re worried about eating it?!”
Fuze was ignored once more, his voice rapidly losing its strength. His mind had trouble keeping up with the sights before him. All he could do was sit there and watch absentmindedly.
Yohm and his men were just the same, gazing at this former clear and present danger to their lives that had been swatted down like a bug. Yohm didn’t like that much, although he couldn’t articulate why. A natural sort of disappointment spread across his face as the five goblin riders ignored him and kept toying with the spider.
A few minutes later, the humans were presented with a dissected knight spider.
Gobta was next to it, looking incredibly pleased with himself and chatting with someone via Thought Communication.
“They’ll have a recovery team here before too long. You leave three of us here to stand guard. I’ll guide Kabal and his friends back to town.”
“Got it. Be careful.”
After finishing the conversation, he briefly discussed with his right-hand man, Gobchi.
“Well, ready to go?”
And with that cheery question, Kabal and the others set off.
Fuze was too flabbergasted, Kabal’s gang too overjoyed, and Yohm too annoyed to formulate any answers.
It was up to Yohm’s band to shout their approval instead. They weren’t quite sure how it all worked out, but regardless, they were all on their way to Tempest, the land of monsters.
Gobta certainly sounded triumphant in his briefing.
We were at the usual meeting hall, Milim seated next to me like she had somehow earned the right. Shion and Soei were behind us, with Rigurd and Benimaru seated ahead.
Next to Gobta were Kabal, his two friends, and an unfamiliar middle-aged guy. He was joined by a tanned, rugged-looking man and a fairly nervous-looking magician type. Shuna had just taken her own seat, ordering one of her assistants to bring out tea for the group, and then Gobta began talking.
Once he finished, we all decided to introduce one another. The middle-aged guy was Fuze, the top guy at the guild in the kingdom of Blumund. Must’ve been the dude who told Soei he wanted an audience with me.
The tanned guy was…well, pretty handsome. Not as much as Benimaru or Soei, but he had smooth, taut muscles and a wild look about him that must’ve floored ’em at the tavern. His name was Yohm, and
he called himself the captain of the Frontier Expedition Force, sent out by one of the earls in the kingdom of Farmus. The thin, flinchy guy next to him really was a magician, as it turned out—Rommel was his name, and judging by the looks of things, he was the brains to Yohm’s brawn.
Once they all gave their names, I decided to give mine.
“Guess I better speak up, too. My name is Rimuru Tempest, and I’m the leader of this town, or nation, or whatever you wanna call it. The Jura-Tempest Federation is the official name for it. And as you can see, I’m totally a slime!”
It felt necessary to mention that, given how I was the only nonhuman in the room. It made the older guy—Fuze, I mean—open his eyes wide.
“Truly, a slime…?”
He seemed to know at least a bit about me, but I guess I should’ve expected him to be a little shocked. If it didn’t personally happen to me, I guess I’d have trouble believing that a slime was going around acting like the king of his little nation of monsters.
“So, uh, Rimuru,” Kabal asked, “who’re all the new faces in the room?” He must’ve meant the ogre mages. I gave them all an intro. That just left Milim, who spoke up before I had a chance to point her out.
“And I’m Milim. Good to meet ya!”
A pretty casual intro, especially for a demon lord prone to bouts of cruelty like she was. Hopefully nobody was fooled by the pretty face.
Fuze was the only one to respond to the name “Milim” with any sort of suspicion; maybe he knew about her demon lord side. Kabal and Gido, meanwhile, were alternating their gazes between Shuna and Shion. Milim might’ve been cute, but they must’ve already dismissed her as too much of a child. They certainly are honest to themselves, at least.
Yohm and Fuze must not have been too interested in potential romance—or maybe they were just nervous, having to deal with monsters like this. Their faces remained stony serious. I wish Kabal and his gang could learn from them a bit. I can understand how they feel.
It was odd, though. Gobta ran down the whole story for me, but I still didn’t understand anything about what went on. Why were Fuze and Yohm fighting together?
Just as I thought it, Fuze opened his mouth.
“Allow me to explain, perhaps…”
He must have noticed that Gobta’s report wasn’t quite enough. Glad to see someone has some tact around here. Witnessing my slime form must’ve thrown him off a bit, but he was still being remarkably polite with me. Better hear him out.
………
……
…
Once he was done, I think I began to get the idea. I guess the orc lord news had sparked so much chaos that he decided to have Kabal guide him here to check things out for himself.
Rommel provided some supplementary info of his own, too. He was largely in the same boat, driven by the guild in Earl Nidol Migam’s fief in response to the rumors spreading across Blumund. The magician told me everything he seemed to know about Nidol’s thoughts on the matter, and judging by that, he had a pretty accurate grasp of what was going on.
“Why are you being so honest with me?” I asked.
To which he replied, “Well, to be frank, I’m really not sure what I should be doing here, right now. I just figured, you know, honesty would be the best policy, as we try to move things forward.”
I solemnly nodded at him. That sure helps me, too.
Suddenly, the previously silent and sullen Yohm shouted out, like someone had flipped a switch. “That crap doesn’t matter! What I’m wonderin’ is: Why is this slime actin’ like he’s king of the world around here? I mean, y’all realize this is insane, don’t you? And how do slimes even talk anyway? I mean, what the hell? Why’s he got all you guys under his spell or whatever?”
“How dare you be so rude!” Shion roared.
“You shut up, woman!” Yohm shouted back.
Ooh. Bad move, I thought—but before I could even finish that thought, there was a dull thud as Shion used her sheathed longsword to send Yohm crashing to the ground.
“Ah! I’m sorry, I just…”
“You just what?!”
I should have expected it, but I really need to do something about Shion’s temper. Yohm may have been out of line, but this instantaneous resorting to violence had to be addressed sooner or later. I immediately had her look after Yohm—she hadn’t put much force into it, so at least he wasn’t dead. A few shakes of healing potion, and he woke right back up.
He winced at the sight of Shion looking right down at him, but otherwise returned without a word to his seat. I had to hand it to him. It took a lot of guts to pull that off.
“Sorry about Shion there. She tends to lose her patience a lot. I hope you’ll forgive her.”
Yohm nodded—I’m sure very reluctantly.
“But that was so terrible! I’m known for my endurance under fire, you know!” That was news to me. I figured it was safe to ignore her babbling.
“Wah-ha-ha-ha-ha! Losing your patience, huh? I see you’ve got a lot to learn, Shion. You need to broaden your horizons, like I have! No wonder you’re so hot-tempered!”
I felt like I could hear Milim happily blurting out something like that, but I’m sure I was imagining it. No doubt it was the last thing Shion wanted to hear from her.
But anyway.
It was time to put all these reports together.
Fuze was here because he heard about this mystery slime—i.e., me—and wanted to get to the bottom of it. Figuring out whether I was friend or foe was his main priority.
“The very idea of monsters creating towns— Ah, pardon me. I can understand demi-humans building settlements well enough, but a town where multiple races live together? I’ve never heard of such a thing. I have a habit of not fully believing something unless I witness it with my own eyes, you see. And if this whole story was true, I wanted to figure out how we would interact with it, and how much. The reports I received told me this land wasn’t a threat…but I thought ascertaining for myself would be the best move. So that’s what brings me here. I was hoping you’ll permit me to stay a while so I can survey the entirety of your operations.”
It made sense to me. I’d hate to be feared as a potential threat, so I readily gave him permission.
I also gave him my own outlook. Being guild master suggested Fuze was in a fairly high position—a man of influence, perhaps, in Blumund. Being able to speak frankly with someone like him, and request their cooperation, sounded like a good idea to me.
“You might not believe it,” I explained, “but I’d really like to be friends with the humans. I already told Kabal and his friends about that. I’m not asking for it immediately, but you know, I think it’d be nice if we could start engaging in trade or some other kind of interaction. We’ve already opened formal relations with the Dwarven Kingdom along those lines, which you’re free to confirm for yourself. I think your merchants would find it pretty convenient if they could run caravans through this area, but what do you think?”
“Hang on— I mean, please, just one moment. You mean the Armed Nation of Dwargon?! I know that is a neutral kingdom, one that had close relations with many demi-human races…but you’re saying it’s recognized this land of monsters as a nation? Because I find that extremely hard to believe…”
I had asked him to trust in me, but he was proving a tough nut to crack. So I called for Vester as a witness. It turns out Fuze was familiar with him.
“Minister Vester! …Or not anymore, I suppose. But regardless, I never imagined meeting someone of your stature here… Is all of this true?”
“Ah, well met, Sir Fuze! It has been quite a while, hasn’t it? Well, you are correct. Through a rather unique turn of events, I am now living quite peacefully in this land. Everything Sir Rimuru has told you is the truth—King Gazel and Sir Rimuru signed the covenant themselves.”
The conversation wended its way across a few other topics, but I still had the impression Fuze thought he was dreaming all of it. Maybe the idea of mons
ters banding together and establishing a nation was a little too wild for just anyone in this world to start believing yet.
Yohm’s motives, meanwhile, were a bit more complex.
He and his band of men intended to fake their own deaths in order to gain their freedom. They were seeking asylum in some safer country than their own, where they intended to join the local Free Guild. They also intended to inform Earl Nidol Migam—the greedy old fox, as they called him—about what they found in here. This wasn’t out of any love for the earl, but so they could potentially save as many of their fellow countrymen as they could. A man of honor, certainly, no matter what his looks and attitude suggested. Rommel had grown to like him, plainly—to the point that he betrayed Nidol, his benefactor, to become Yohm’s top aide.
Hearing all this made me think a bit.
“All right, so…Fuze, people already know around your kingdom that the orc lord was defeated, right?”
“No… Only the king and a few select people are aware.”
And that meant—
“Okay. So, Yohm, wanna forge a contract with me?”
“Huh? What the hell’re you—erm, how do you mean, sir?”
Now both Shion and Shuna were glaring at him. They must not have liked that tone of voice. Maybe it’d be kinder of me to pretend not to notice.
“Well, to put it simply…”
To put it simply, Yohm and his band of thirty men would become the saviors of the day, the slayers of the orc lord.
That monster was well and truly defeated, and yet Fuze still eyed me with suspicion—because I was a slime, a monster. In that case, why don’t we frame the rumors we’d spread so that I merely cooperated with Yohm, and he was the one who pulled off the feat?
There’d be a few unnatural time-related contradictions to that story, but the general public didn’t need to know all the details. If the top brass who did know the truth were willing to keep mum, the regular Joes out there could work out the rest of the tale for themselves. As for the surviving orcs, we could say that there was a mutiny in the army, and there you go. A nice, simple story—and easy to believe, as long as that two-hundred-thousand figure didn’t get mentioned.
