Upon reaching his home, Rimuru placed Ichigo in his room and then after he did a quick health analysis on her to make sure that there was nothing that he needed to be overly concerned about. He was moderately surprised to find out that the reason that the girl had passed out was because of stress and not because her magicule's were drained.

Still...regardless of the reason for her sudden collapse, he was glad that she was okay. After that, he left to rejoin the others waiting for him in the entertainment room of his home.

The second that he stepped into the room, Hakurou asked, "Is Lady Ichigo alright?"

"She's fine," Rimuru said easily. "She collapsed due to stress."

"Stress, eh?" Souei echoed in a curious tone, his head tilting to the side inquisitively.

"Yes, I suppose that she was overly nervous about battling Charybdis and was simply hiding it from us." Rimuru replied with a shrug. "Not that I can blame her any. I'd be pretty stressed too in her place."

"Indeed." Hakurou said with a bemused expression on his face.

"Alright," Rimuru started as the door opened and Princess Shuna stepped into the room followed by her slightly disgruntled looking brother. "Shuna, Benimaru, just in time. Did you have any trouble getting here?"

"No." Shuna said gently while her brother sputtered in place next to her before finally snapping.

"Yes!"

Poor Benimaru head looked as if he were ready to commit a murder or two.

Rimuru didn't feel any need to ask the ogre what had happened to him since he could take an educated guess and probably be one hundred percent right. If there was one thing that he knew with absolute certainty about his people, it was that they loved their celebrations and parties.

It was simply their way of showing how happy they were to have survived yet another disaster. And Rimuru allowed it because well, why not? Besides, feasts and celebrations were fun.

He always got a kick out of seeing or even participating in some sort of drunken shenanigans with some of the others.

But that was neither here nor there.

"Right, let's get down to business then." Rimuru said as he began their impromptu meeting with some of the ideas that he had. He also brought up Souei's idea of making Ichigo either his Ward or becoming her Champion and protector.

To be honest, he wasn't quite sure how making her his Ward would work. Mostly because she wasn't a child despite the fact that she was still young. But there were other things that factored into it too. There was also the fact that a Ward was considered adopted by the one who was their Guardian. And as much as he liked kids- he was in no way ready to be someone's dad. Not even in an adopted sense.

There was also the fact that as his Ward, he would have control over various aspects of her life. Money, property and land, etc. And with as much trouble as her abilities and other things probably caused her- that simply wasn't a great way to go since he doubted that she would care for it at all.

Which made becoming her Champion and protector a lot more appealing and sensible to him.

As a Champion he knew that certain things would be expected of them both. He would essentially be entering into a relationship with her where he would be her most stalwart defender and guard.

And as Souei had suggested before, if he was to do things that way- then elevating her status to that of himself or just a little bit lower, in the eyes of his people would ensure that she would be protected regardless of whether he was with her in person or not.

However, an elevation in status meant that she would have different responsibilities.

And while that wasn't necessarily a bad thing, he was a tad bit resentful that he wouldn't be able to have her keep on being his second assistant. Especially when she was so damn good at the job at it and saved him from Shion's tantrums.

But as he had said earlier, he couldn't do a half assed job of protecting her. So, he might as well go all out.

He figured that for everything to work out, he would have to make her a Queen. An equal to himself in authority within Tempest. However, the crux of the matter if this happened was that everyone would mistake the elevated status to be his way of saying that he would be taking her for a wife.

He wouldn't lie, he'd spend some alone time here and there thinking about how such a relationship would work.

Especially once he recalled their frolicking in the forest while she had been all naked and diabolically genius and such. The idea of taking a wife- Ichigo, was appealing to him. Incredibly so. But as appealing as such an arrangement would be to him, he didn't want to enter into such a thing just because he was lonely and craved companionship.

So, once he told his friends this- he quickly had to explain that he wasn't getting married- since he had been right about the title being misunderstood. He laid out specific details.

For instance, since he would be elevating Ichigo's status to Queen, then they would both rule over Tempest together.

He understood that some people may have reservations about this particular change. But he was quick to point out to the others that she had a good head on her shoulders and was also a kind girl who worried about everyone and everything. Regardless of whether it was her responsibility to do so, or not.

It also meant that she would be taking part in political delegations and other things along with him. Which may make things easier on them since females had a tendency to charm people in ways that he just couldn't.

Needless to say, that by the time he was finished talking, he'd somehow gotten everyone to agree to his plan. After that, there were some minor details to sort out.

Like whether or not she would live in his home with him as a roommate, or he could have a new home built for her much closer to his own. One that was more like his own. He could even make sure that it had enough room for her friends if she wished them to stay with her.

He also needed to assign guards to keep her safe whenever he wasn't around. He felt that Benimaru would be a good guard for her. But given some of the pyromaniac incidents that tended to happen- he couldn't help but wonder if that would even be a good idea.

He'd noticed that Ichigo was pretty lenient with people when they did something dumb or crazy.

She wouldn't be a bad influence on Benimaru, would she? He wondered as he imagined what the two would be like as a pair of eccentric troublemakers. The conclusion that he came too was that Tempest would burn.

So maybe assigning Benimaru as one of her guards wouldn't work unless there was someone to act as a voice of reason when there was none. Hakurou, maybe?

Yeah, he could work as a guard for her alongside Benimaru. And maybe he'd reshuffle her friend's jobs so that they could act as her guards too. Especially since they already acted the part.

After putting a bit more thought into it, he finally made his decision known- guard wise, that is. Hakurou seemed to be happy with the new job. Whereas Benimaru...threw a tantrum of his own and nearly set his home on fire before he could calm him down.

If it wasn't for Souei, Shion, and Princess Shuna being present to help him calm the red head down, otherwise he was fairly certain that he'd be homeless.

It took him another hour or so to finish wrapping up all of the details of Ichigo's upcoming elevation in status, as well as becoming her Champion and protector and after that, he dismissed everyone to go about the rest of their day as they wished. He still had some other things to get done.

And hopefully he could do it all before Tempest's new Queen awoke.