Rimuru and the others landed and Rimuru asked Diablo and the other demons to leave for now. After all they would only cause more trouble.
Rimuru then asked for a summary of what had happened so far. He was surprised by Eri's betrayal, but then he remembered that Ciel was already suspicious of her. Obviously he was not surprised by Hyama's betrayal.
When Kaori talked about Meld...
"Where is Meld-san?"
"Here." Shizuku and the others brought Meld's body. He was still white-eyed and his skin was pale.
"He is still under the effects of Eri's magic. Meld-san is dead." Shizuku said with a tear streaming from her face. Everyone was saddened by this. Meld was someone very important to all of them.
"Ciel-san... Can we do something?" Rimuru asked shyly. He think it would be hard to have something to do, but he had to ask.
"Hm? Of course."
"Eh?"
Rimuru didn't expect the immediate confirmation, so he let out a confused groan. Ciel approached Meld and squatted down beside him. Rimuru gave her permission and she borrowed the skill "God of Souls Hades" Ciel guarded Meld's soul.
"It seems that girl 'Eri' has strengthened Meld's soul, to make him stronger, so it will be possible to revive him."
Ciel used a potion and healed Meld's body. Then she put his soul back. This would not have been possible in most situations, but Meld had suffered from the "Bind soul" spell and Eri still spent extra magic on him, so it was possible for Meld to survive.
"He's fine, he's just going to sleep for a while. It could be even days." Ciel said and stood up. The others were surprised and happy about Meld's survival.
"Rimuru-kun, who is--"
"Shizuku-chan, I think it's better to leave the questions for later, don't you agree? Everyone is very tired today."
Kaori interrupted Shizuku and suggested that everyone rest and talk tomorrow. Shizuku and the other students easily agreed. Everyone was mentally and physically exhausted.
Liliana called some guards to arrest Eri and then went to find out how her father, the King, was doing. Unfortunately she would find out that he was dead.
"Guys, let's go find Tio-san and Sensei?" Rimuru spoke and everyone agreed. Rimuru flew off and took them along, they saw Tio flying with Aiko on her back, but they would not leave the place. It was then that Chloe received a telepathic message from Tio through the same channel they had talked earlier.
"Chloe, is the Battle over, is Goushin-sama and the others okay?"
"Uh, yes, why?"
"Then I think you guys better come over here."
Everyone came over to her, Aiko showed her happiness that they were okay and even hugged Hajime, this was a bit much, but no one commented on anything. They asked what was going on and Tio pointed them to something on the ground. It was something that looked like a blue hologram of a grown man.
"I think it's one of the liberators."
"He seems to want us to follow him."
Hajime and Yue's observations were right. They followed the man and arrived at a church on God's Mountain. This church was at the foot of the mountain and was usually surrounded by guards, but not today.
"Miledy said something about that, right? That one of the Great Dungeons was on God's Mountain."
"Yes..."
Everyone agreed with Shia's remark and approached the church. Inside it had a statue of a man and a large magic circle. They already knew what was coming, so they climbed into the magic circle.
They all felt their memories being deeply scoured. Not only that, but they also had the information of the concept of this Dungeon implanted in their minds. They all passed the test.
The test for gaining this magic was not to be attached to faith. They could not have faith in the gods. Maybe this was why the church protected this place. To them, giving power to those who don't believe in gods was basically strengthening their enemy.
"..."
"Spirit magic?"
"Yes..."
"What incredible magic."
Aiko seemed the only one impressed by the magic. But that was because the others had just seen Rimuru save Meld with this magic.
"Oi, Rimuru, don't tell me that you..."
"Well, what can I say..."
Rimuru seemed hesitant to confirm Hajime's suspicions. So Ciel spoke up for him, "Master already has this magic. Actually this magic is a degraded version of the master's magic. However it will still be useful since to return home we need to use magic from this world."
"I see..."
"So, Rimuru-san already had this magic?"
"It seems so, Shia."
"Really impressive."
Hajime, Shia, Yue and Tio spoke in this sequence. They didn't comment on anything of the sort, but their gazes said, "Cheater." And that was torture for Rimuru.
"Be-well, I guess we'd better rest." Rimuru spoke, grabbed Sakura, Chloe and Ciel and quickly left the scene.
"What a day, huh? But it all worked out in the end." Hajime said as he walked into his room. Behind him were Yue, Shia, and Tio.
Hajime put away his weapons and threw himself on the bed. There was only one bed in this room, so everyone was going to have to sleep together.
"Mhm, it really was, how are you, Hajime-san?" Shia lay down next to Hajime and checked his injuries. Hajime thought it was a little cute that she was worrying about him.
"Maaa, don't worry. I'm a spiritual life form now. Whatever that means. And it looks like it's hard to hurt me."
Hajime reassured her.
"That was impressive. Goushin-sama even got his arm and eye back." Tio said impressed. Seeing limbs being recovered was not something normal in this world.
"Well, I liked it. Now Hajime-kun won't be hugging us with that icy arm anymore." Kaori said and put Hajime's arm around her waist.
"Fufu, I have several new ideas." Yue's gaze was the same as a predator's. It was obvious what she was going to use this new arm for.
"Let's go to sleep." Hajime suggested before Yue got too excited. He hugged Yue to his side and closed his eyes. Kaori hugged him from behind and tried to sleep as well.
"Mooou, ever since Hajime-san and Kaori-san started dating, Hajime-san has never slept with me again."
The night came to a close with this complaint from Shia.
"It was a tiring day." Rimuru said and yawned. He threw himself on his bed. Rimuru, Sakura, Chloe and Ciel were in a room that Liliana got for them. This was the same room that Rimuru stayed in when they had first arrived in this world.
"Rimuru-san, about Hinata, is it true?" Chloe asked.
"Don't worry. It's probably a lie, they just needed to annoy me. Hinata should be fine."
"Who is that again?" Sakura asked curiously.
"Oh, that's right, we don't talk about her much. Hinata is a friend of ours from the other world. She used to be a Hero who tried to kill me, but we made up."
Rimuru and Hinata had fought a while ago, but that only happened because of the manipulation of the "Seven Sages".
"A... Hero?"
Sakura got a thoughtful expression.
"Yes, why?"
"No, nothing."
Rimuru found Sakura's reaction strange, but made no comment. Sakura materialized her pajamas and lay down. Ciel went to bed too, but she didn't materialize her pajamas. In fact she took off her clothes.
"What! Ci- Ciel-san, what are you doing?" Rimuru was shocked, but it wasn't just him. Chloe and Sakura hadn't expected that either. So it didn't seem to be another "surprise," which wasn't bad, since Rimuru wasn't in the mood.
Rimuru avoided looking at Ciel/Shizu's beautiful body. Her beautiful, perfectly shaped breasts were on display, and so was her beautiful pink flower. She was a provocative figure. Rimuru turned red, but Ciel did not look embarrassed.
"Hm? I just want to lie down." She tilted her head in confusion. When she did so her breasts swayed in a sexy way.
"But-but why don't you put on some clothes?" Rimuru asked covering his eyes.
"Master seemed sad about the possibility of Hinata being dead, so I thought sleeping like this would make him happy."
"Ciel-san..."
Basically Ciel didn't like to see him sad, so she wanted to make him happy anyway. This was a natural thing for Ciel, since she was created from an ability of Rimuru, but for Rimuru they were words that stirred his heart.
Ciel lay down and covered herself, "If Master doesn't like it, I can get dressed."
"No, you don't have to..." Rimuru covered himself and hugged her.
Ciel hugged him back.
"Thank you for your concern, I love you."
"I love you too."
Ciel and Rimuru stayed in a hug and Rimuru gave her a kiss on her cheek.
"Fufu, Ciel-san and Rimuru-san are really cute."
"Yes, I have never seen Rimuru-san so happy."
Chloe and Sakura smiled upon seeing them and lay down. Rimuru made a clone to sleep cuddled up in the two as well.
In the courtyard the other day. The students were all waiting for Rimuru, Hajime and their group to talk. Liliana was also here. Everyone was avoiding the subject of Eri and Hyama. Those who were close to Hyama and Kondo locked themselves in their rooms. While Suzu, who was very close to Eri was trying to talk to her, but Eri didn't want to.
Aiko also didn't talk much since the last day, she was feeling guilty for having helped to blow up the church.
The subject the students were talking about the most was Diablo's overwhelming strength and also the horror he brought.
"Ha!"
Kouki was practicing with his sword while waiting for the others to arrive. He hadn't said much since yesterday, but his expression was grim.
"Kouki, they'll be here in a little while. Why don't you stop training for a while?" Shizuku suggested and he sat down.
"They're taking too long." Kouki complained.
"Well, they fought to save us, right? Let's let them rest for a while. If it wasn't for them I don't know what would have happened."
"I... I don't trust them. Even though they saved us... They said they don't care about us anymore, remember?" Kouki frowned as he spoke. You could tell his feelings were conflicting.
Shizuku just snorted at his words. She was not in the mood to argue with Kouki.
"Hey, Amanogawa, don't you think you're overreacting? Even though they said that, they saved us. Besides Shirasaki-san is still with them. She's our companion too."
Even Nagayma couldn't bear to see Kouki bad-mouthing those who saved them. The other classmates seemed to agree as well.
"I'd rather Kaori didn't stay with-- anymore."
"Kouki!"
Kouki stopped talking at Shizuku's warning. Shizuku had already told him that it was Kaori who chose to be with Hajime and it was not Kouki who should choose that.
They sat down to wait for the others to come and Kouki said nothing more. Shizuku stood watching him with a worried expression.
Rimuru, Hajime and the girls arrived. Diablo, Testarossa, Última and Carrera were also here. The other demons were helping with the rebuilding of the city.
The students were a little startled to see Diablo, but they didn't say anything. First Shizuku asked Rimuru who Diablo was, and the group gave a brief explanation. They knew they would have to explain an hour, so they had already prepared for that. But it would also be a pain to explain everything in detail, so the explanation they gave was as follows: Rimuru came from another world and in that world he was a king.
The classmates were shocked by this revelation. Knowing that one of their classmates had come from another world made them dizzy for a moment. But they seemed to have taken it well, as they didn't make any unreasonable comments.
By the way, about how the otherworldly subordinates were here, Rimuru told them that they came by a magic that could only summon and not overtake worlds. Moreover this magic only worked with these specific underlings.
This was all true. What Rimuru used was the "summoning of demons" to summon them, so there was no way to leave this universe with this magic. Rimuru could already use this since he arrived in this universe, but he didn't do it for a reason. He didn't want to leave the demons stuck here with him and diminish Tempest's strength. The reason Rimuru summoned them now is because Ciel managed to find a way to send them back.
A few days ago Ciel finally managed to completely reestablish the "soul Corridor" with Veldora, so Rimuru could now contact him. So if the demons wanted to come back it was just a matter of Rimuru talking to Veldora for someone to summon them.
"En- so there are more universes?" Shizuku asked after recovering from her surprise.
"Yes, I don't know how many, but there are several universes."
Their classmates' shock was growing, finding out that there are several other universes made them realize how small the world is.
"Okay, we'll talk more about the universes later, but now let's talk about them." Kouki said pointing at Diablo and the demon girls "Are they your subordinates?"
For some reason Kouki's voice contained a bit of anger. The other classmates were also curious about that.
"Yes, that's right." Rimuru agreed without blinking. That seemed to have irritated Kouki.
"And- and what are they?" Nagayma asked, the demons might look human, but he didn't think that was it. In fact, the boys were delighted when they saw Carrera, Ultima and Testarossa. On the outside they just looked like beautiful girls.
"I think that you should ask them. I'm not the one to talk about it."
"Don't worry, Rimuru-sama. We have no problem revealing our race." Testarossa stood up and approached the students.
"My name is Testarossa and this is Diablo, Carrera and Ultima. We are all demons. In this world you must also know us as spirits of the underworld."
"Pfft!" Liliana spat out her tea. She was shocked by his words. Demons in this world were the stuff of legends, as were nature spirits.
Shia, Yue and Tio were also surprised, but they had already imagined it would be something like this. Even because Rimuru had summoned spirits in the Haltina forest.
"I see..." Shizuku didn't know about the legends of demons, so she wasn't that surprised, but she understood that these demons were not the same as the demon race. Besides she didn't want to anger Diablo, after seeing the horror he brought.
"And- es- wait! So those people who are helping to rebuild the capital are..."
Liliana looked startled.
"Yes, they are demons too. Don't worry, I asked them not to reveal their identity."
Rimuru's words made Liliana want to scream, That's not the problem! But she held back. To Liliana the demons were pure evil. But they had helped save the city, so she would give them her vote of confidence this time.
"I think I'll let it go. As long as they don't cause any trouble."
For now she sipped her tea to calm herself down. The other students didn't seem to have any problems with the demons either. From the outside they just looked like beautiful, normal people.
Many of the male students had already fallen for the Testarossa, Ultima and Carrera. While many of the girls had a crush on Diablo. Even though he was scary.
But there was someone who was not at all okay with this. You already know who it is.
"What do you mean, huh? How can you let demons loose out there!? And why didn't anyone say anything about them being Rimuru's subordinates, huh!? How can you have demons as subordinates!?"
Kouki was irritated and wanted to know why Rimuru had demons as subordinates.
At the beginning of Kouki's complaint, Rimuru just ignored him as usual, but as Kouki was getting more and more irritated he decided to answer him. However someone acted before he could speak.
"You are being rude to Rimuru-sama!"
"Gugh!?"
Carrera kicked Kouki, causing him to fly and hit the wall. Carrera was the shortest fuse of the demons, so she was the first to act.
"Wait- Carrera! Don't be hasty!"
Rimuru quickly stopped her for if she didn't, she would have continued her attack and Kouki would have gone from this to better.
"Ara ara, good thing Carrera shut that idiot up. Otherwise I would have ripped his tongue out."
"Right? I was thinking of offering him suffering worse than death."
Seeing Testarossa and Ultima speak this with smiles made the students break into a cold sweat. A beautiful little girl and a beautiful woman smiling and saying brutal things scared even Hajime.
Stop saying these things! Rimuru wanted to scream.
"No, okay? Let's not do anything like that, okay?"
Rimuru calmed them down and asked Kaori to heal Kouki.
"Kufufufufufufufufu."
"Diablo-kun."
Diablo seemed about to do something to Kouki, so Rimuru scolded him. Everyone sat down in their chairs(except Kouki) and continued to talk. By the way, during the previous events Hajime had an aura of: "It's so nice not to have to deal with that." He also seemed to have liked Carrera's attitude of kicking Kouki.
Maybe if Carrera hadn't acted like that, Hajime-kun would have kicked Kouki instead? No, right?
Rimuru couldn't shake the thought.
"Speaking of healing, Rimuru-kun, who is that?" Shizuku pointed to Ciel who was sitting next to Rimuru. She brought up this topic because Ciel had healed Meld.
Furthermore this woman was extremely similar to Rimuru. In fact their faces were basically identical and if it were not for the color of their eyes and hair it would be difficult to differentiate between them. The only other difference was the muscles that Rimuru had acquired during his time as a human. He had decided to gain some muscles so people would stop mistaking him for a girl.
"Ah! Yes, I almost forgot." Rimuru thought it would be complicated to explain that Ciel came from an ability, so he decided to give a simple summary. He pulled Ciel around the waist, bringing her and his accent closer together. "This here is my girlfriend, Ciel."
"" "Eh?" ""
"Fu."
The students, including Shizuku let out confused groans, while Yue and Tio laughed at their reactions. They seemed to have guessed that the situation would be exactly like this. With Rimuru casually revealing things and the students totally confused.
Rimuru could have sworn he saw Shizuku casting him a judgmental look, but when he looked once more he saw her with her usual expression.
It must have been just my imagination.
It wasn't.
"Is-is that true?" Shizuku asked addressing Ciel.
"Of course it is, I love Master with all my being. My body soul soul will are all his. He can do whatever he wants with me." Ciel said as if it was something obvious and hugged Rimuru's arm at his side. It was clear that these were his true feelings.
That answer made Shizuku's cheeks blush. The other students were also surprised by Ciel's words. Ciel was saying that it was literally "his" that Rimuru could use her however he wanted and she wouldn't mind. This was proven in what she called himCould be considered an odd way of thinking
After the surprise, the students showed very varied reactions. Most of the girls were gossiping among themselves, curious about the relationship. While the boys were boiling with anger and saying things like:
"Damn! Rimuru is a hell of an Eroge!"
"How did he get so many beauties in such a short time!? I want to know!"
"Not only that! They are all beautiful and powerful as if they were some kind of goddesses! The new girl just saved Meld-san!"
"It must be a family gift, right? After all Nagumo is also forming his own harem."
The person who made that last statement was met with rubber bullets from Hajime.
By the way, the demons had already received the information about Rimuru's new partners. When they heard this they were overjoyed to have more "queens" for them to serve.
As for the students who were talking about how lucky Rimuru was to have more than one girl, the demons reacted like this
"Kufufufu it is normal that Rimuru-sama is surrounded by girls."
"I agree, any woman would fall in love with our master. After all he is so wonderful, kind, merciful..."
"Mhm, mhm, he is also so powerful, humble and has such a noble spirit..."
"That's right! Rimuru-sama sure is amazing!"
Diablo made a comment like, "That's normal for Rimuru-sama," while the girls started praising Rimuru in many different ways.
Rimuru upon hearing them say this just wanted to shout, "Stop, stop please!" He was embarrassed to receive high praise. Rimuru was looking down with his cheeks slightly flushed.
Chloe, Ciel and Sakura didn't seem to have any complaints about the praise and just smiled as they saw Rimuru embarrassed. Meanwhile Hajime was sending a wry look as if to say, "I never knew you were this amazing" in a wry tone.
Yue, Shia, Tio and Kaori were casting kind looks at Rimuru thinking that he had to deal with these people all day. Meanwhile Akame stood looking at the demons curiously.
As for the students, they were all looking at the demons as if to say, "They really are loyal to Rimuru."
The demons were still singing praises to Rimuru(who wanted to stick himself in a hole) when Chloe came to their rescue.
"Guys, stop. Rimuru-san can't take it anymore."
When Chloe spoke, the demons immediately fell silent. And Testarossa added, "Fufu, I think I spoke too passionately."
After this event the impression of Rimuru being "king" became deeper in the students' minds.
"Whew" Rimuru sighed in relief.
The male students were once again casting envious glances at Rimuru. These looks were both because of his harem and because he was praised by the beautiful girls(demons). However, the looks were not so intense, because many of them thought: If someone is going to get Chloe, nothing more fair than a king. That thought also applied to the other beautiful girls.
"O-ok Rimuru-kun's love life is not the focus here. We thank you for your help, but we want some answers." Shizuku said and no one objected. I wanted to ask if Rimuru-kun already knew about Eri's betrayal, and I also wanted to know more about the attack."
Hearing Shizuku's words the students looked at Rimuru. "Eh?" he let out a confused groan.
Why would I know about Eri's betrayal? He wondered internally, but before he could say anything.
"You put it in the letter, right?" Shizuku said confused by his reaction.
"Ah!" Rimuru remembered the letter he left for Shizuku, but he had a problem. He wasn't the one who wrote many of the things in that letter. It was Ciel who told him to put a warning about Eri, so Rimuru didn't actually know anything about it.
"Uhhh, you know, it's just that actually..." Rimuru looked at Ciel as if asking for help. He didn't want to reveal that Ciel was his ability, so he didn't know what to say. Rimuru activated thought acceleration.
Ciel helped him make up an excuse and he deactivated the ability.
"I was suspicious of her, but I had no proof, so I asked you to be careful." He said trying to sound as confident as possible.
"I see..." Shizuku looked at him with a little admiration. So did the other students.
Stop it! I didn't do anything, stop looking at me like that! He wanted to scream.
"What about the attack? Ah, maybe Sensei knows something about that, right? That might be related to what you wanted to tell us that day?"
Aiko was surprised to be called out, but soon pulled herself together. She then began to tell about the evil gods and the liberators. She also talked about how they were the ones who attacked the city joined with the demons and manipulated people with the apostles.
When she finished.
"What do you mean!? So we were dancing on the palm of the gods' hand all this time!? Why didn't you guys warn us when we met in Orcus!?"
Kouki became angry and questioned Hajime and Rimuru. Rimuru looked at Hajime as if to say, "It's your turn." Hajime looked at Kouki and asked:
"Would you have believed it?"
"What?"
"If I had said that the gods have gone mad, would you have believed me? No. That would only have generated more discussion."
"But if you had provided evidence, then what!"
"Are you an idiot? Why would we have to work so hard for you? The only thing we want is to get out of this world. I can't speak for others, but I don't care about you at all. That goes for the gods too."
"You mean you don't care that the gods manipulate the people of this world!"?
"That's right. Look, let's stop right there. Any other complaints you have, I'll make you fly."
Hajime replied with indifference and Kouki shut up. The other classmates who had not yet seen the change in Hajime were shocked.
"Hajime-kun has to be a little more delicate." Rimuru muttered as he saw the scene of the two arguing.
After discovering that they were being manipulated, the students were disheartened. They also realized that Hajime would not return to them.
Shizuku confirmed with Hajime that the source of the information was the dungeons and also questioned him about the God Age Magic. After he told her:
"That's it! If Nagumo doesn't care about this world, I will save it! And for that we need the magic of the Age of God. We'll go with you."
You could tell that Kouki was not being driven by "justice". Not least because he didn't say anything about the other members of the group who were also not going to help this world. He was attacking Haji
Actually Rimuru intended to destroy the gods, but he wasn't going to say that, because he didn't want to keep showing off his strength.
"No, I'll give you the locations and you go by yourselves." Hajime's gaze said, "Why are you inviting yourself?"
Kouki cast him a dark look.
"But you say it's extremely difficult, right? If we were to master a dungeon, would we stand a chance?" Shizuku asked.
"Actually you guys are too weak, but that doesn't matter." Hajime's words confused the students, so he explained. "Look, even I who was called incompetent managed to challenge a dungeon, in other words, you guys need willpower."
Kouki tried to start another ruckus as Hajime implied that his will was weak, but was stopped by Shizuku.
"Nagumo-kun, Rimuru-kun, could we go along with you? Just to a dungeon and then we'll go alone." Shizuku said half embarrassed.
Hajime, Rimuru and the girls talked among themselves for a while and after Rimuru convinced Hajime, they accepted. Liliana also asked for a ride to Imoertio after they left town and they didn't object as it was something simple. However she also asked if they couldn't stay in the Kingdom a while longer so that the Kingdom wouldn't be left unprotected.
After another time of discussion:
"]Sigh[ okay, we will stay a little longer. I guess I can also fix the barrier." Hajime reluctantly agreed. Aiko, Liliana and Kaori who previously cast sad looks now cast happy looks.
After they left the courtyard where they were talking, Rimuru, Chloe, Ciel and Sakura called the demons over to talk. They wanted to know how things were going in Tempest.
Testarossa took the lead and reported:
"For now there have been no more disappearances. There has been no unrest in any of the towns in Tempest either. About the other countries, they had some things, but nothing worth mentioning."
Today Tempest had twelve more cities besides the capital "Rimuru". In fact these twelve cities were named after each of the Twelve Patrons. That was a little payback from Rimuru for the capital's name.
"Ah, yes, there is one thing. I almost forgot..."
Testarossa then told about a recent event in the country. After hearing her Rimuru would want to say, "Why didn't you tell me this before!!!"
