Despite how they had simply walked into Tempest, they weren't fools. They knew that they were being watched. Probably to determine whether or not they were a security risk of some kind.

So, after passing the peculiar group of monster's- Rukia, Renji, and Chad followed Ichigo to the middle of the town where their friend and leader walked up to the water fountain that they found there, dropped her bag and then promptly flung herself into it.

She popped up a moment or so later with a contented sigh while the others goggled at her since this wasn't typical behavior for her. But when she playfully splashed all of them, they took the hint.

Look harmless. Appear innocent.

Don't look the least bit threatening to the people of Tempest.

After that, Rukia decided to initiate a splash war with their leader. One that she almost won until Ichigo tapped Renji in as she slowly stood up and climbed out of the fountain so that she could sit down on the ground a few feet away and watch the pair with Chad.

Whom had decided not to take part in the splash war since he'd win it automatically anyways.

They were sitting there watching their friends for a total of about five minutes or so before someone finally showed up to see what all of the noise was about.

He was an elderly guy. And carried himself with the sort of elegance and grace that was all too familiar to Ichigo and the others since he sort of reminded each of them of Byakuya.

"Hello there." He called out politely despite the fact that Ichigo knew that he was just coming over to gauge their receptiveness and check for hostility.

"Oh, hello!" She called back with a friendly wave that was followed by Rukia all but jumping on Renji's back and following her example with a soaking wet and very enthusiastic wave of her own before being dumped with a startled yelp into the water by the red head.

The elder chuckled as the splash war resumed and said, "I had thought that some of the children were playing in the fountain again and was coming to tell them to keep the noise down. But since I can see that you aren't them- are you perhaps new here? Travelers, maybe?"

"Ah, yes. We are. We just got here a short while ago." Ichigo said hesitantly. The elder smiled warmly at them, but even she could feel the carefully suppressed energy surrounding him as he muttered.

"I see."

He didn't sound upset or anything. Which she took to be a good thing as Chad finally decided to go and join Rukia since she was losing terribly.

She tilted her head back a bit to look at him as he moved and noted the subtle way that he glanced at her. Silently conveying that he trusted her as he stood up and then walked over to the fountain and jumped into the water.

Renji visibly bristled at his appearance, especially when he figured out the giant's intentions and wound up with a huge face full of water while Rukia let out a gleeful laugh.

Ichigo merely shook her head at their antics and turned back a moment later to apologize to the elder for possibly getting splashed. But the words died in her throat as the man laughed while absently wringing out a handful of his clothing.

"Ah to be young, again. You four seem to be having so much fun that this old man feels badly for interrupting."

"You aren't interrupting," Ichigo said easily as she slowly got to her feet. "Besides, I bet that you could win a splash war against those three easily." She finished with a grin.

The elder merely stared at her for a heartbeat, silently appraising her before letting a wide grin of his own stretch across his face while his eyes danced in amusement. A chuckle easily slipping past his lips.

"As much fun as that sounds in this heat, perhaps another time. I need to get back to my post before I upset my lord. You, young ones have fun." He said with a small wave as he turned to walk away.

Ichigo merely smiled and called out for him to have a good day, startling him a bit since he turned to glance back at her questioningly before finally disappearing to go and inform the others that they didn't seem to be hostile and suddenly found himself face to face with his annoyed lord.

"Ah lord Rimuru-" He started to tell him what he'd found out by his master had grabbed him by the back of his coat and dragged him around the corner of the nearest building where the others were all cowering in fear of the slime since he had caught them all red handed.

The second that they had joined the others, his master released his grip on his coat and settled himself against one of the side of the building with an aggrieved sigh and asked. "What did you learn, Hakurou?"

"That they are well mannered. Unlike some people." The elder deadpanned as he stared at his master hard in annoyance.

His lord flinched at his tone and muttered a quiet apology for grabbing him like he had and got a smile from the elder as he went about reporting his finding.

For starters, the travelers were well mannered. Friendly. And certainly, didn't mind being close to monsters. Or at least that was the impression that he got when he had approached them.

He also stated that they were young. Very young since two of them were barely adults. While the other two were definitely adults, though he guessed that they were in their early twenties.

Hakurou was even nice enough to tell them that the group's leader was the super pretty girl.

He even told him that her energy and power were both shockingly high. Alarmingly so for a human since human bodies weren't meant to hold such power in the first place.

The elder then went on to emphasis that she was attempting to conceal it though. But this bit of information was a bit surprising for Rimuru to hear.

Though not entirely surprising since stranger things had happened.

Still...he couldn't help but wonder if the girl was actually a demon lord of some kind? He hadn't met any aside from Malim so far. So, he honestly couldn't say unless he were able to appraise her up close for himself.

"Alright, next we have to figure out why they're here." Rimuru said in a thoughtful tone as he tried to figure out how to approach the four.

"You could simply ask them," Hakurou pointed out gently. "From what little bit I could see, their leader was fairly easy to get answers from."

"So, you think the direct approach will work?"

"You'll never know unless you try." Hakurou said with a slight shrug. Rimuru mulled everything over for a few minutes before finally nodding. The direct approach it was then.

Taking a deep breath, he mustered up his courage and started walking.

Ichigo was starting to get drowsy.

If there was one thing that she hated about traveling- it was the sheer amount of sleep that she couldn't get. Between all of the humans, monsters, and animals that wandered around; sleep was simply something that she wasn't able to indulge in often.

Unless she literally dropped from exhaustion.

Thankfully, despite her lack of proper rest these past few months...everything had worked out okay. Her exhaustion was an excellent thing to exchange for her friend's continued wellbeing.

"I'm starting to get hungry." Chad muttered next to her.

The splash war had ended when Renji had nearly wound-up drowning so after calling Chad as the winner of the war, everyone had gotten out of the fountain and was now trying to sun dry themselves. It was nice and warm outside, and the sun was out so drying off was turning out to be fairly easy.

Stifling a yawn behind one of her hands, she blinked her eyes a few times in an effort to clear her vision a bit as her other friends automatically perked up noticeably at the mere mention of food.

"You guys act like I haven't been feeding you at all during this trip." She said in wry amusement. Beside her Chad jolted a little bit and turned his head to look at her in concern.

He hadn't meant to make her feel bad! Should he apologize?

"Aww, you know that isn't what we're thinking Ichigo." Renji protested. "Those deer that you found for us the other day were great! We even still have some of the meat to munch on."

"Yeah, I know." She said with a grin as she got to her feet again and took a moment to pop her neck before finally saying, "Come on you babies. Let's find you some food before you all starve to death."

Rukia whooped happily and jumped up from her place on the ground and quickly ran over to her and grabbed her hand. "Can we have something with noodles? Oh! No pizza. No wait-" Ichigo focused on Rukia's food rambling so intently that she almost missed the guy walking up to them.

Almost, of course was the operative word.

She noticed him by his energy. The brilliance of it drawing her gaze away from her smiling friend to lock with his own. Gold eyes met citrine, and the time seemed to slow to a snail's pace as she spent a moment appraising him.

He was strong. Freakishly so for someone who looked as if he were just a teenager. But he was no threat to her or her friends. If anything, he was probably coming over to them to check them out like the elderly guy had.

She smiled at him in a friendly manner and almost shouted out a warning when he somehow managed to trip over absolutely nothing at all and fell. He probably would have landed on his face if not for the fact that she moved to catch him.

She caught him easily once she was close enough, her arms wrapping around him and stopping his decent towards the ground as he let out a distressed sound that had her wondering if he was actually sick or something. "Hey, are you okay?"

She heard him mutter, "Crap, that would have been totally embarrassing," And cocked her head questioningly as he slowly turned his head to look at her as he said cautiously. "Uh, thanks for catching me, Miss."

"Sure. No problem." She muttered as she released him and let him step back away from her and take a second to make sure that he was really okay.

Once he seemed completely certain that he was fine, he shifted his attention back to her and smiled. "Uh, hi. My name is Rimuru Tempest. What's yours?"

"Starving." Chad muttered, earning a startled look from Rimuru before he let out a laugh at the deadpan reply since it certainly wasn't the one that he had been expecting.

The woman- no, she wasn't quite a woman just yet.

Rimuru could see that for himself now that he was up close to her, as she shot the giant a chiding look. But the guy didn't look the least bit repentant or impressed at all though. Instead, he merely shrugged his massive shoulders and looked kind of bored.

"I'm sorry about my friend," She said once she had turned her face back towards him. "Hunger must have caused him to forget his manners."

"Starving." The giant said insistently. This time nudging the girl forward with his hand a bit.

Rimuru wasn't a bit bothered by the giant's antics though. He merely grinned at the four in amusement as he said. "Tell you what, I'll take you somewhere to get some food. And then you can give me your names. Okay?"

Ichigo gave him a slightly embarrassed look as Chad nudged her again, this time almost knocking her over as she agreed to the guy's terms.