Five months later
The day that they came across the slowly growing new country of Tempest was almost surreal to them. Ichigo and her friends had been looking for a place far enough away from their former home- a place where humans weren't so... abundant in numbers. So, coming across a country that was basically, all monsters but wanted friendly ties to human's was a lot like a dream come true.
"Do you think they'll let us stay?" Chad asked as he walked up behind her on nearly silent feet. Ichigo turned her head to look at her giant friend and smiled. Though she didn't dare to get her hopes up she wanted to reassure him that they wouldn't be wandering around on the road forever.
"If they're wanting friendly ties to humans then, probably."
She didn't have to tell him that because they were a country of entirely different monsters that most people would be too afraid to settle there. Which was why it would be perfect for them.
Few other humans meant few other people to cause them trouble, attack, or even attempt to kidnap her and enslave her for her abilities since resurrecting the dead wasn't the only one that she had discovered.
It was merely the most prized since those who knew of it believed it to be worth having since they thought that it meant that they no longer had to fear death.
Which totally wasn't the case at all because she had found that she had to be willing to go through the near constant agony just to bring others back to life.
She had figured out early on that the ability to resurrect was based purely on what she was willing to endure and sacrifice to maintain the balance of the world. Which made a lot of sense given that she was now a God of creation. She just wished that the repercussions of having the ability weren't so bothersome.
But whatever.
Ichigo was nothing but a soldier regardless of her gifted title via the late Soul King, and Kisuke. And because of that, she excelled at pushing herself forward no matter what she may suffer. Especially since falling was absolutely something that she just couldn't do. Not when she had so many people relying on her.
She wasn't a weakling after all.
And if she were a weakling, her dad would be ashamed of her.
"I've heard that the guy that run's this place is a fair one," Renji said as he walked up to them in a similar manner to how Chad had approached her minutes before. Ichigo was sure that if it wasn't for the crunching of healthy grass and other things then she'd have to put bells around both men's necks as her red headed friend went on to say. "He's done some pretty amazing stuff since founding this country of his. He takes in refugees from other places and takes care of them. He pays the workers well for their work and gives them time off and a bunch of other stuff."
"He sounds like he's lenient." Chad pointed out.
"I've heard that he is. But we shouldn't mistake that for weakness though. There are rumors that he wiped out an orc army a few months back."
"An orc army?" Ichigo muttered with a frown. She'd never met an orc before so she couldn't say whether or not they were good or bad. But if her knowledge of video games were anything to go by- they were incredibly tough to stop. And even more difficult to kill.
"Yeah. Apparently, they were marching this way and killing everything and everyone in their path." Renji explained with a slight shrug as Rukia finally decided to join them and practically shouted at the man.
"How'd you find this crap out anyways?"
Renji merely smiled at her and decided that he shouldn't answer. Meaning that he'd gotten the information while visiting one of the taverns, while drinking, when they had passed through a few villages a while back.
It wasn't the best way in the world to get information since the info wasn't always very reliable. But there wasn't anything that she could do about it now.
Sighing, she scratched her cheek and took a moment to weigh the pros and cons before finally making her decision. For better or worse. "Come on. Let's go check the place out for ourselves." She said tiredly as she lifted her bag up a bit higher on her shoulder and then started walking.
Her friends all exchanged a knowing look and began to follow her while talking amongst themselves.
Rimuru was in the middle of walking around the town with several of his friends, checking on various things. Like how the current construction was going for the orcs that he'd integrated as citizens when he got the report that strangers were making their way towards Tempest.
Now, don't get him wrong. The occasional random passerby was a normal for them since people did tend to travel from place to place depending on a multitude of different variables.
However, it was when his border patrol reported that the ones making their way into his home territory were human's that he sort of flipped out. Though not exactly in a bad way.
To be honest, he was sort of excited. After all, the only human's that ever hung around Tempest were his adventurer friends. The guild master and a few others. But they never really stayed that long whenever they did hang around. And he'd been trying to coax some travelers into staying and settling in Tempest long term.
He had failed at it thus far, but he was fairly optimistic that someone would take him up on his offers and stay. So, to say that he was excited that he may actually get to try coaxing someone to make their home there again, would be an understatement.
He ran towards the gate of the city so quickly that his friends could barely keep up with him. And while he had been running, several of the others in the vicinity had taken it as a sign of an impending attack of some kind and had joined in following him.
Thankfully though, they had forgotten to grab their weapons as they had followed him.
So, by the time he came to a stop and began to try and make himself look a bit more dignified for the newbie's arrival. After all, he wanted to make a good impression as the lord of Tempest. But the longer that he waited, the more that everyone got into a tizzy.
He tried to calm them all down, but once they found out that they would have human's passing through again, they got just as excited as he was since they knew of his desire to have some settle there.
So of course, everyone was talking at once and demanding to know what they could do to help him get what he wanted. Benimaru had the idea to threaten setting the newbies on fire if they didn't stay.
But Rimuru nixed his idea since setting people on fire was no way to make new friends. Much less, convince a small group of humans to live in their town.
Ranga had the idea of looking cute and playing with them. Which was nice, but also made his master a bit nervous since Tempest wolves were...terrible at holding back their strength. And the wolf's tail had been known to blow people away. Literally.
Plus, there was the fact that he wasn't even sure if any of them were animal lovers.
Hakurou had the idea of giving the newbies the five-star treatment to welcome them. And since it was the most harmless plan that their lord had heard thus far, Rimuru totally agreed with the elder.
That would be the best way possible to get them to stay!
He took several moments to bark out a few orders and send several of his friend's scurrying off to do as he bid them. As he caught sight of the travelers out of the corner of his eye and quickly came up with the idea to look as if he were just...meandering around.
Since he wouldn't look quite as suspicious as he would if he were just standing there waiting on them. Thankfully, those who were still present easily caught onto his act and fell in with him. Starting up a new conversation with him as he subtly checked the human's out from underneath his lashes.
The first thing that he noticed was that there were only two among the small group that carried weapons. One of the men, and a young woman with long dark hair.
Both people were currently engaged in conversation with another woman, a dumbfoundingly lovely one with long copper colored hair that literally almost made Rimuru swallow his tongue from shock.
His mind screaming, What the hell?!
Was there something in the water that made the women so damned eye catching? He wondered to himself as he had to fight to keep his head from turning so that he could follow the woman with his eyes.
He'd come across some real beauties since being reincarnated as a slime monster, all of them tens. But this one...she was easily a twenty on the beauty scale, at least. And that was only from his first glimpse of her! That twenty may quadruple once he was closer to her.
But whatever, he shrugged his shoulders a bit and then focused on the last member of the group.
The last guy had to be a giant of some kind. Rimuru estimated that he was easily more than eight feet tall. He also looked foreign. Almost as if he were...of Spanish descent?
It occurred to him that the guy may have been one of those unlucky enough to be summoned to this new world to be heroes. And if that was the case...were any of the others in his group also summoned as well?
His heartbeat picked up in his chest, and he let out a slightly shaky breath and then started to open his mouth to say something to one of the others only to find his friends had abandoned him.
"Aw, crap." He muttered as he quickly turned this way and that to locate them.
Absently noting that even Hakurou was MIA! Which was unbelievable since it wasn't easy to distract an old guy like him. And it was uncharacteristic for him to just wander off without at least saying something first. But what made the current situation even more mind boggling to Rimuru was the fact that the old man had apparently wandered off after the group!
What was going on? He wanted to scream. Please don't tell him that anyone had become smitten! That would cause all kinds of trouble!
It took him several seconds, but once he finally did find them, it wasn't really his friends that he spotted so much as the tail end of Benimaru's red overcoat. Letting out a small scream of alarm he then bolted after that frigging overcoat intent on stopping whatever shenanigan's were about to occur before it was too late.