Kurotama is the kingdom that Kisuke and the others took over and live in.

Breakfast consisted of a nice egg omelet with veggies, a side of bacon, and some sweet and juicy fruits. All of which were delicious once they both sat down to eat them.

And since he was a slime, she didn't mind feeding him some extra helpings up until he forced himself to stop eating. After that, he helped her with the dishes while he told her what was on his mind.

To be honest, he was still completely upset at himself for yesterday.

To him, it had really seemed to be that for a little while, at least, he had totally forgotten that she was human and as such needed to sit, eat, and take breaks regularly.

So, after laying out the new work rules for her concerning the time that he wanted her to leave for the day, rest, and food- he sat back in his seat and waited to see how she was going to respond.

He didn't know why her silence was so damned unnerving to him nor why it was making him so anxious. After all, it wasn't like he was expecting her to throw a frigging tantrum like Shion did. And after several heartbeats, she finally replied with a simple.

"Alright."

Allowing him to breathe a small sigh of relief as his previous anxiousness completely vanished. Suddenly feeling energized, he thanked her for taking the time to listen to him and he was going to go and set things up so that when she came into work tomorrow, she'd be a lot more comfortable.

She merely nodded at his excitement and saw him to the door and waved at him while he went running down the street fully intent to do as he said he would.

All to make her life easier.

Ichigo shook her head wondering if all lords were so kind, compassionate, and empathetic. But quickly shrugged it off as she realized that she had some things to do for the day. Starting with going to the market.

She had grabbed Rukia and dragged her along with her since she had thought that the woman would want to see what the market had to offer for infants and children. And the sad fact of the matter was, that aside from fabrics, and the occasional toy that they both found here and there- there was absolutely nothing to help make an expectant parent's life easier at all.

No crib stores. No clothing stores. No places to collect necessities for them like diapers, bottles, wipes etc. Just...nothing.

Which sent Rukia's joy and excitement at being a future mother plummeting into dangerous territory. And because of that, Ichigo wound up holding her very distressed friend in her arms while the woman cried since the lack of those things and materials probably also meant that there was a distinct lack of medical care and doctors to help as well.

The entire time that Rukia was crying, Ichigo's mind was running a million miles per hour trying to plan out different ways to fix this incredibly terrible problem.

Once Rukia had finally calmed down enough to stop crying, Ichigo gently wiped her tears away and promised her friend that she would find a way to fix this...neglectful bunch of idiocy.

Earning her a small, wary, watery smile from the smaller woman who knew that she never made promises that she didn't completely intend to keep.

Needless to say, that aside from a few groceries that both women had been lacking in- their trip to the market wasn't as fruitful as Ichigo had hoped that it would be.

After she returned home, and her things were all put away, she made sure to grab some paper and a pen and then sat down at the kitchen table and started to write to Kisuke and the others.

Informing them of everything that had happened so far in their new home while also carefully planning out how to approach the lord about his serious lack of foresight and all of the dangers that it represented.

And once she finished with her letter and set it aside to make some adjustments to it here and there later, she started to write up a draft for a proposal for doctors, midwives, merchants, people who crafted baby furniture and other things to be brought into Tempest to help its population flourish even more.

It was sometime in the afternoon when she finally finished her proposal and since there was no time at all to waste, she got up, popped her neck and spine and grabbed her papers and practically charged out the door to go and hunt the lord down and force him to listen to her proposal if she had too.

Either way, the problem would be fixed even if she had to do all of the work with her own fucking hands.

Rimuru was in the middle of a small meeting with Toreinī, Gabiru, Princess Shura, and the dwarf brothers when Ichigo practically kicked the room's door in, startling everyone so badly that they all jumped. Including himself, since he hadn't been expecting her to suddenly just show up and damage one of his doors in such a violent way.

To his right, he heard Toreinī mutter a soft, "Oh my." Of surprise.

While Shion growled angrily from her spot to his left and demanded, loudly. "What is the meaning of this intrusion?"

Gabiru chimed in after that. "Can you not see that our lord is in the middle of an important meeting?"

Ichigo paused for a moment at seeing that he was in a meeting and flushed with embarrassment and took a second to collect herself before stepping further into the room and taking a brief look around, her citrine-colored eyes landing on Toreinī for an unsettling few seconds as she walked forward.

While ignoring Shion and Gabiru's shouts for her to stop, turn around, and leave.

Rimuru could tell that things were getting too out of hand when Gabiru's hand went for his weapon, and quickly decided to intervein before the girl got herself hurt.

"Is everything okay?" He asked once she was close enough, his mind flitting to her friend Rukia and the possibility that something may be wrong with her. Which would upset the girl and totally explain her kicking down his door during a meeting.

"Rukia's...distressed. But otherwise, fine." She replied as she held up a hand with two of her fingers up. "I have two things that I need you to do. You can classify one as urgent. And the other is a simple errand."

It was weird how Shion and Gabiru suddenly fell quiet. But he didn't think much of their abrupt silence since it obviously meant that they were not so subtly listening to everything that the two of them said, just like everyone else in the room was.

He blinked at her, wondering what the hell she could believe was so damned urgent that she corner him like this when he was already up to his eyeballs in meetings and other stuff but quickly shook his head to clear it as she held something out to him.

"Huh?" He said unintelligibly as he took the stuff held out to him, his eyes flickering away from her face so that he could scan what he was holding.

One looked like a simple letter with a name scrawled across the envelope in vivid and clear writing that he could easily read as the name, Kisuke Urahara. And the other thing...looked like a proposal of some sort.

Frowning he started reading the proposal as he asked curiously, "Where should I send the letter?"

"Send it to the kingdom of Kurotama." She replied, causing his head to jerk back up so that he could pin her with a startled stare as she then explained, "It's a place that is to the east, along the coast."

"Oh, I've never heard of it before." He said as he looked at the letter again when Toreinī suddenly said,

"I have."

He looked at the dryad now, a scowl marring his face as the forest guardian simply smiled at him and then explained that the kingdom of Kurotama used to be a place of poverty and death, because of a very selfish and cruel king that was obsessed with wealth and power.

From the way that the dryad talked, the guy had let people starve, get ill, go without housing, and money of any sort of that could have helped them to survive and left them to literally die in the streets while the king had stayed safe in his palace.

But he had eventually been overthrown, and the kingdom was currently under new management.

Apparently, a group of very kind and compassionate people that overthrew the previous king had sorted all of the problems created by the former one's greed, out. And had personally made sure that the place was no longer one of death and poverty.

In fact, it had become a very nice, thriving place full of merchants, medical researchers, various arts, schools etc. All of which many kings simply didn't have the resources for in other kingdoms.

It sounded nice and all.

Especially the way that Toreinī explained everything to him. But he couldn't help but be a bit put out that one of his alliance members had known about the thriving kingdom and not mentioned it to him before now.

After all, if their own kingdom was going to keep growing and such then he needed to branch out to new places and make more friends and alliances.

"Thanks for explaining Toreinī, I appreciate it."

The dryad giggled at his very put-out expression. "Of course, lord Rimuru." As Ichigo shook her head at him and then turned and walked away before he could so much as say anything else to her.