The next day, Ichigo came into work late.
Which was something that Rimuru understood completely after a short conversation with Souei, about her little late evening frolic in the forest, and didn't really mind since by the time that she finally got there.
He'd already finished the emergency meeting that he'd called with the others of the Jura alliance, as well as the rest of his inner circle.
And all of them had agreed that medical care for human's and monsters alike was definitely necessary within Tempest. Especially once he laid all of the horrible repercussions mentioned in Ichigo's proposal out for everyone to hear so that they could understand everything better.
To say that the women present had been shocked completely speechless about some of what they had heard would be an understatement.
Shura and Shion had both burst into tears while some of the men had looked positively ill.
None of them had ever realized that humans and monsters both faced such horrible circumstances during various ailments, injuries, illnesses and even pregnancy. Nor had they realized that many of the things that claimed both race's lives could be avoided with the right care and medications.
Both of which would significantly reduce the senseless loss of life as well as everyone's reliability on just using healing potions.
He may have also mentioned the unlikely scenario that he'd read in Ichigo's proposal. The one where in the unlikely event of their healing potions were unable to heal them due to some sort of magical interference or something else.
Needless to say, everyone had been totally on board with his plans to send several delegations to some of their allying countries and seeing if they could find doctors, healers, and midwife's. They needed some that each specialized in various health conditions.
So that everyone would be treated regardless of what various health issues cropped up.
And since they would begin their search's immediately, he had already chosen the people that would go to the other countries to look for those things. After that, the meeting had ended since those people had to prepare to do as he had tasked them too.
It was at that point that he had remembered to hand off Ichigo's letter so that it could be delivered. And since Toreinī had been there for the meeting and also knew where the letter needed to go already, he asked her to please take care of it.
The dryad had been strangely happy to take care of the simple task for him. But whatever, at least it was going to be done quickly.
He had just returned to his office when Ichigo stepped in and walked up to him and handed him some stems of pretty blue flowers and then walked off to check out her new desk.
Leaving him to blink at the blossoms in his hands in confusion and wonder just what the flowers were for.
He had wanted to ask her but didn't really get the chance to since he had a pile of papers on his desk nearly as tall as he was. So, he had pushed his questions and his confusion aside and set the flowers gently down on his desk, so as not to damage them, and then started to work.
A few hours passed; he wasn't really sure how many.
But from the way that he was making some pretty decent number of things that he'd already gone through and set aside, he'd say that more than a couple of hours had already come and gone.
Figuring that it was finally about time for a break, he stood up to stretch his legs out and move around a bit.
His gold eyes going to the blue flowers, he took a moment to study them before finally asking, "Ichigo, I have a question. Why did you give me flowers?"
The girl snapped her head up from the medium size pile of papers on her own desk and blinked owlishly at him, indicating that she could probably use a break herself since she seemed as if her eyes were trying to cross on her.
Walking over to her, he gently took hold of her arm and pulled her up out of her seat, earning a whine from her as she twisted around to try and grab the pages that she'd been working on.
"No! Wooork!" She said in a long-drawn-out way that sounded just like a zombie to his ears.
It might have elicited a laugh from him under different circumstances, but since zombie talk was never a good thing in his book. Especially when it came to his co-workers/friends, he just tutted and practically had to drag her away from her desk while she continued to whine and reach for it.
But in the end, he managed. Even if she did manage to pull a fast one on him and escape his grasp just long enough to grab the desk in a death grip that he'd had to wrestle her just to get her to let go again.
It was after he'd had to forcefully pry her fingers from its corners that he then tossed her over one of his shoulders and charged outside as fast as he could just to avoid having her grab it again.
To say that he didn't know what to think of her actions would be a gross understatement. He'd never met someone so set on doing their work that they would actually forgo escape just to stay and get it done.
All in all, he was both amazed and impressed with her nearly zombie-producing work ethic. It was far better than his own. And that was really saying something since he literally worked almost nonstop twenty-four seven.
The second that he reached the outdoors, he carefully placed her back on her feet and then sighed and asked in a happy tone, "Isn't this better? Finally, some fresh air and a chance to stretch our legs after being cooped up all morning."
She made another zombie-esque sound and wobbled a bit in place before finally blinking her eyes again and let out a hiss of pain as she muttered, "Christ it's bright out here." And lifted a hand to try and shield her eyes from the sunlight.
"Yay! You're a human again!" Rimuru cheered jokingly as she turned her head to glower at him in a slightly peeved manner.
"Don't be a goober."
He chuckled, "I'm not." He defended. "You were turning into a zombie. I had to save you before you started eating the people close to you."
She gave an unlady like snort and muttered something rude along the lines of, "Your brain would have tasted like snot anyways. And I would have just been hungry again in five minutes."
"Hey! Now, who's being a goober?" He shouted.
"You are, dork." She deadpanned.
"Doofus." He shot back with a wide, toothy grin that edged along the lines of menacing despite the fact that he wasn't the least bit bothered by her playful name calling.
"Alien." She muttered causing him to gasp dramatically in mock outrage at the mere insinuation that he was an alien of any kind and let out a loud animalistic growl as he suddenly lunged for her with the intention to stop her from calling him mean names again by tickling her.
She laughed as she side stepped him and escaped being captured while he staggered forward a little bit and then turned and narrowed his gold eyes at her before trying again.
This time using his unnatural speed to see if he could catch her that way.
She escaped him again, despite him wondering how the hell she had managed that when he was so fast. After all, humans weren't well known for being quite as fast as monsters were.
He, himself was one of the rare monsters that tended to move quickly enough to mimic the speed of a lightning strike.
And though he hadn't been using all of his unnatural speed just now, she still shouldn't have been able to dodge him. Especially so easily.
Feeling a nagging sensation in the back of his mind- a drive that he didn't feel at all most of the time- to stalk and pounce, he got a wicked idea to test Ichigo's unusually zippy reflexes and speed so that he could compare it to his own.
Licking his lips, he focused all of his attention on the girl who had just gone eerily silent and very. very still and was looking at him with an expression of vague alarm as he smirked evilly at her.
She lifted a hand and pointed at him and hissed out, "Don't you dare do what I think you're about to do."
His smirk only grew at her words as he feigned a step forward, causing her to squeak and turn and then run. He giggled a little bit, probably sounding for a moment as if he were unhinged. Thankfully there was no one around to hear him. So, he didn't really care how he may have sounded.
He held himself totally still and mentally counted to one hundred, figuring that it was a good enough head start for the girl before finally taking off the same way that she had gone so that he could see if he could catch her.