Chapter 5: Chapter 5 – Ragnarok

A lizardman sits on a throne deep within a cave system just within the swamps. Next to him is his daughter, and scattered throughout the room are guards stationed to protect him. After just a few moments another lizardman enters the room.

“Father!”

“Ah, you’ve returned. Well? Did you succeed in recruiting the Goblins to assist us?”

“Yes, sir! They number 7,000 in total. They are standing by. But… Why must we remain here in the face of an Orc attack? This is not how the proud lizardman race fights.”

“While you were away, we were approached with an offer of alliance. Until they join us, our best option is to focus on defense.”

“You’ve aged, Father.”

“What?”

The lizardman raises his hands as armed lizardmen funnel in from the entrance of the portion of the cave they were residing in, filing behind the lizardman.

“Utilizing these natural labyrinths may be a wise strategy against a large army… However, it divides our forces between too many separate corridors, Preventing us from meeting the enemy with our full strength!”

Three armed lizardmen step forward, pointing spears at the neck of the lizardman chief sitting on the throne, his daughter shouting in protest, “G-Gabiru, what is the meaning of this?!”

“Be calm, captain of the guard. I have no intention of harming you.”

“But…”

“I will apologize later for resorting to violence. You may feel uncomfortable while restrained, but bear with it until I defeat the Orc Lord.”

“Son! I will not allow you to do this!”

“Gabiru… no, Brother! Please, come to your senses!”

“Unhand me! Unhand me, I said! Unhand me at once! I will not stand for this!”

A lizardman walks up to Gabiru, holding up the chieftain’s trident and handing it to him, “Sir Gabiru, here.”

“That’s my father’s…” He grabs the trident, holding it up as his body courses with its power, “Th-This power… Vortex Spear, you acknowledge me as your master now?”

Now with the trident, the other armed lizardmen now return, “We’ve seized the leaders of each clan. There were a lot of young ones who didn’t agree with this defensive battle.”

“I see.”

The lizardmen all kneel behind Gabiru, “We’re all behind you. We’re counting on you, Sir Gabiru.”

“Of course. I will show you how a true Lizardman fights! The time has come!”

Gabiru marches towards the exit, spear in hand as the group of lizardmen begin to cheer, “GABI-COUP! GABI-COUP! GABI-COUP!”

---

Gabiru had left the village about several hours ago, and while I personally, along with Benimaru, wanted to just kill the annoying lizard, it seemed Rimuru again preferred the diplomatic solution. If you count sending the clown-nosed goblin out to kick him in the back ‘diplomatic.’ In the last few hours, me and Rimuru have worked a bit to organize a meeting between the important figures of the village. The primary attendees were the Kijin, the Goblin village chiefs, as well as some others like Kaijin.

Now with the meeting started, Souei, who was basically the closest thing we had to an anti-intelligence or reconnaissance agency, gave us information on the Orc army. “I saw 200,000 Orcs. The main army is moving north along the river. Based on the movements of this army and a detached force, I expect they will regroup in the marshlands east of here.”

“In the Lizardmen’s territory, you mean?” Rigurd asked, looking down at the collection of wooden planks with a makeshift map painted on it. If Rimuru had asked I would’ve easily made a 10 times more accurate map in about 5 minutes.

“Two hundred thousand, huh? That’s such a huge number, it’s hard to even imagine it.” Rimuru muttered, who, for being the leader and all during the buildup and preparations to a war, was sitting and acting fairly casually.

Shaking my head, I spoke up, “Yeah, but it’s all infantry basically, Heavy infantry sure, but I’d doubt their armor can do much against some of our skills.”

“How do you know?” Benimaru asked, staring at me, Rimuru curiously turning as well, nodding.

“It’s simple. Nobody simply can just make 200,000 sets of high quality armor for massive Orcs! Making just one set of armor for an orc is probably expensive already, now try to equip 200,000. If we assume this plan was devised after Veldora’s aura disappeared, giving them the opportunity to attack, they likely made it in a matter of months. There’s no way in hell they just had 200,000 sets of Orc-fitted armor just laying around in the even Veldora disappeared.”

“You’re probably right, but we can’t underestimate them.”

“We don’t have to. They’re strength is numbers, it's always a question of quality over quantity, and they’ve chosen the latter. The majority of our fighting force, at least its strongest users like Banimaru or Ranga can easily use highly destructive skills. There’s also the prospect that me and Rimuru can fly. In a one on one with me and Rimuru alone against all the orcs, they likely wouldn’t win until pigs fly, in both a literal and metaphorical sense.”

Hakurou nodded, grinning as he rubbed his chin, “I’ve seen Tanya train the Goblin Riders, I can safely say that if she wasn’t even tired out by that, she can probably single handedly face a large portion of the Orc army, and I’m certain Rimuru could accomplish much of the same.”

Rimuru nodded, though added, “Even so, what is it that the Orcs are after?”

Kaijin, who was basically the one with the most outside knowledge considering most here have never left the forest, now spoke, “Hmm… Orcs are not very intelligent monsters. If there’s something behind this invasion other than just instinct, we should suspect there’s someone backing them.”

“Like a Demon Lord, perhaps? If that Gelmud guy who came to your village is involved in this… Well, there’s no proof to base that on right now.”

“I don’t know if a Demon Lord is involved, but…” Benimaru muttered.

“But?”

“I think this makes it much more likely that an Orc Lord has appeared.”

“The Unique Monster that only appears once every few centuries?”

“Yes, I can’t imagine an ordinary Orc leading an army of 200,000.”

Souei made a slight grunt, looking confused for a moment before Rimuru asked “What is it?”

“One of the body doubles I had scouting the area has made an encounter.”

Oh great… Another one… Because we need more ‘encounters’ today. I already have a headache and I thought Demons couldn’t get them. Or at least that I couldn’t. Frankly this is one of the few times since I’ve reincarnated when I’ve actively desired to sleep for any reason other than to pass the time.

“An encounter?”

“They request an audience with you. How shall I respond?”

“Who is it? I already had my fill on Gabiru, so I’d rather not meet anyone weird.”

“I don’t believe this one is… weird… But it is a highly unusual encounter. It’s… a Dryad.”

The only one who didn’t seem initially shocked by this was myself, though I have no idea what importance dryads have, however if the fantasy of my past life was anything to go by, in forests like this I’d take it they’re very important.

“A Dryad?!” Upon Rimuru's exclamation, I realized that even though he had similar knowledge on this new world as me, he was still surprised by it. However, looking upon him, I realize that it's not just surprise on his face, but...excitement? Wait, do slimes have libido, or did he lewd over Dryads in his past life? The latter is just a waste of time, and doesn't matter much in this strange, new world I'm in, but if it's the former... I'm setting up multiple barriers around where I'm going to sleep, just for safety reasons.

“Hasn’t it been several decades since the last time a Dryad showed itself?” Rigurd asked Kaijin who simply shrugged before Rimuru continued.

“F-Fine! Bring her here!”

(‘I already know how you are with elves, please try to act professional around the Dryad, Rimuru.’)

(‘W-What are you talking about?’)

(‘I have no idea what you’re thinking, but it's not hard to guess. You aren’t that good at hiding it.’)

(‘I-I don’t know what you’re talking about.’)

I internally sigh, it's frankly no wonder he put me as Chancellor. Whether or not he realized it, he really needs someone with more professionality at least as a co-ruler of sorts. I just hope he doesn’t do something immature or frankly stupid should an important meeting happen in the future.

A moment later a green light emitted from the center of the table, leaves swirling around as a plant grew out of the table and ‘sprouted’ a Dryad. The dryad itself would, under my past lives’ standards, be considered beautiful, however I had frankly no care for it myself. I just hoped Rimuru could think past his… thoughts…

Shion, who was sitting to Rimuru’s right, moved to stand slightly in front of him protectively, whereas the other Kijin seemed prepared to move in as well. I frankly didn’t need to, even if I did need to protect him, I didn’t need to stand up to deploy my barrier. Not to mention Dryads almost certainly must fall under elementals and as such I’m weak to them.

“Rulers of monsters, and all those that are loyal to them, forgive me for this unannounced visit. I am Treyni, a Dryad. It is a pleasure to meet you.”

They said ‘rulers’ and ‘them’, which must mean they recognize me as a co-ruler. I’m not sure if it's just an assumption or if it means that's what I officially am now. I have no idea how much this Dryad even knows about the village.

“I’m Rimuru Tempest… um, Treyni-san. So what brings you here?”

“I have come to request a favor. Rimuru Tempest, Tanya Tempest, rulers of monsters, I would like you to defeat the Orc Lord.”

Now finally getting off the table as everyone moved to the side of it, Rimuru stepped forward asking, “Defeat the Orc Lord? Um… You’re asking us?”

“Yes, that's right.”

Benimaru, stepping forward in front of Rimuru, despite the fact this is basically a diplomatic meeting, speaks to the Dryad, “That’s quite a selfish request from someone who just appeared out of nowhere, Treyni the Dryad.”

Yeah… that's her name. Was that last part supposed to be intimidating? It feels like a moment in movies when they’d say ‘if that even is your real name.’

“Why have you come here? There are races far stronger than Goblins.”

That's true, but for one these are Hobgoblins, two the village is full of powerful Kijin, three it has Tempest Wolves, and four it has both a highly powerful slime and myself who is a Demon Peer. I feel like that’s more than enough to qualify us as one of the strongest.

“Yes, that is true. If the Ogres’ homeland had been at full strength, perhaps I would have gone there. Though, even if I had done that, I still could not have ignored the existence of these individuals. Were our settlement to be attacked by the Orc Lord, the Dryads could not hope to fight them alone. This is why I have come to request assistance from someone strong.”

“The idea that the Orc Lord even existed was still just a theory to us…”

“The Dryads have knowledge of essentially everything that happens in this forest. The Orc Lord does exist.”

“Give me some time to answer. I will back up the Kijin, but I don’t want to go poking at a hornet’s nest for no reason. Let me take stock of the information we have before I answer. Despite how I look, I’m the leader here, after all.”

You don’t act like it half the time, especially when your first instinct when you heard the word ‘Dryad’ was probably lewd.

“With all due respect Rimuru, wasn’t this what we were already planning to do?”

“Well… I mean technically but…”

“I feel like it isn't a matter of if we are attacking the Orc Lord, it's a matter of when or how.”

“You’re right, we should gather what we know and come to a decision.”

Everyone returned to sitting down, with Treyni sitting between Rigurd and Kaijin, both of whom looked incredibly either uncomfortable or nervous, perhaps both. Meanwhile Treyni helped herself to drinks and chips… Without asking…

“Let’s continue the conference. Anyone have any ideas what the Orcs might be after?”

“One thing does come to mind… Souei, did you investigate our village?” Shuna spoke up now, with Souei’s expression unchanging.

“Yes.”

“Judging by your reaction, I assume you found none?”

“Correct. Not a single one belonging to either our brethren or the Orcs.”

“Not one what?” Rimuru now asked, seeming more confused, though I was more focused on how Rimuru was seated when we were supposed to be having at least a somewhat formal meeting. He had his feet on the chair and his legs bent so that his knees were up at his chest. I don’t even see how that’s comfortable.

“Corpses.”

Benimaru spoke, “We didn’t understand how they were getting the supplies to keep an army of 200,000 fed.”

“Are you saying…?”

Treyni nodded, muttering, “The Unique Skill… Starved.”

“Starved?”

“It’s a skill that the Orc Lord, a calamity that brings chaos to the world, is born with. Its influence reaches all those who serve under him, making them devour everything in sight, like locusts. At the same time, they consume the victim’s strength and abilities, making them their own sustenance. It’s quite similar to your Predator skill. In return for obtaining Starved, they feel constant, insatiable hunger. The Orcs move forward for no other purpose than to state their endless hunger and gain more power. That is their king’s only wish.”

“Great. Zombie pigs. Just what this forest needs. If that means anything, it means a battle of logistics isn’t a method to weaken them. The only way to take them out is to attack them head on, and optimally with one battle. If we manage to beat them in a battle but dont defeat them entirely, then they’ll simply get stronger off of any corpse left. If their strength comes from the Orc Lord however… That means that defeating the Orc Lord specifically, rather than causing it to just become a disorganized, but still threatening horde of pigs, it’ll likely lose its strength if not stop its fighting altogether.” I finished my explanation, with Benimaru and Hakurou, both being the closest thing this village has to military experts, nodded.

“If that's all the case, then perhaps the other Orcs are simply under the control of the Orc Lord. Perhaps defeating the Orc Lord will free them and we could recruit them into the village.”

“I believe you’re implying we use them as a strong labor force if we do?”

“Precisely. Of course if they don’t want to I won't force them, and if it turns out it's not the Orc Lord bringing them to hostility, then we’ll simply defeat them. With all being said, however, if they truly are aiming to gain the strength and powers of others, I can’t say we’re in the clear. We have Tempest Wolves, Kijin, Hobgoblins, and a Demon. Flavors aside, they’re all meals with powers that the Orcs would kill for.”

Benimaru gazed over at Rimuru, “Aren’t you forgetting the one meal that would attract them the most?”

“Huh?”

“We have the strongest slime here, remember?”

“Where?”

Benimaru chuckled while I only just internally begged that he was joking and was not seriously that ignorant of his own strength.

“Huh?”

Oh great he is ignorant of his own strength.

Treyni put down the cup she was drinking which I don’t even know where she got, “In addition, we have confirmed that a certain majin is behind the Orc Lord’s appearance. I believe it is someone you won’t want to overlook.”

“A Majin?”

“It is a subordinate of a Demon Lord, after all.”

Treyni stands up from her chair, lowering her arm while keeping another to her chest, “Honored Rimuru and Tanya Tempest.”

Rimuru begins to stand up, and taking that queue, I quickly stand up as well. I’m still not entirely certain why I’m so quickly recognized as a co-leader, but frankly I suppose it just comes with the ‘Chancellor’ territory.

“I once again request that you defeat the Orc Lord. As the ones who have received the Storm Dragon Veldora’s protection,”

Receivedwhatnow?

“Subjugated the Direwolves, and became the patron of the Kijin,”

I did none of those things.

“You two are surely more than a match for the Orc Lord.”

Is everyone just ignoring that they said ‘Received the Storm Dragon Veldora’s protection?’ I feel like that's a pretty big thing considering the fact he’s like a deity or something. What does that even mean? Is it just because we’re protecting the forest that we’ve received his protection? Is it because I was named by him? Wait… Does that mean Rimuru’s been named by him? I think I have an interrogation to do with a certain slime after this.

Meanwhile Rimuru seemed to be thinking, of course we were already planning to defeat the Orc Lord regardless so I’m not sure why he is debating this decision so hard. Ultimately Shion simply jumped against Rimuru and answered for him.

“Of course he will! That Orc Lord is no match for Great Rimuru!”

“Oh, you agree with me, then?”

“Yes!”

I couldn’t help but plant my face in my hands. Did Rimuru really have no control over his subordinates? Sure they were loyal, but none of them seemed to understand basic formalities. Heck his subordinate was answering for him! I really need to whip him into line… At the very least it seemed Rimuru himself was somewhat shocked or distraught from Shion’s interruption, but the point still stands.

Rimuru quickly hopped into his slime form to get Shion off of him, only to end up in her arms and firmly under her breasts. After a few times of him resting there I feel like that's intentional. “Fine. I’ll accept this request to beat the Orc Lord. You’re all in this with me.”

Shuna stands up instantly, “Of course, Great Rimuru!”

“That was our plan all along.” Benimaru stands up afterwards as well, though it seems at least Benimaru remembers what the original plan was.

“We believe in you, and we’re with you. That’s all we need.” Kaijin stands up, though I have to wonder what exactly made him trust Rimuru so much, surely Rimuru just witnessing Kaijin punch a minister isn’t enough?

Rigurd stands up as well, holding up his fist, “Exactly! Let’s show them how strong we are!”

At this point just about everyone was standing up. To be frank I haven’t been here long enough to really act like this, though to be fair I’ve been subordinate to Rimuru longer than the Kijin have. Either way I personally think everyone in this community is a bit too trusting and prone to be loyal to someone. Maybe it's just common in this world? Who knows, maybe this is what Noir was talking about.

Shortly after this they began talking about an alliance with the lizardmen, however my head was killing me so I just excused myself and left. My head had been hurting this whole time but I just pushed through it like I always had. However to be frank I just wanted to rest, and now that the important part was probably over, I just went to sleep.

Waking up, or rather I thought I was waking up, I was again in Noir’s little projection of hell as I rubbed my head and turned around. My headache was gone, but to be entirely truthful this was technically a dream so that wouldn’t really apply here.

“Was this headache your way of getting me to go asleep?”

“Not quite, though it's certainly convenient. Either way I may have an answer to it.”

“Yeah? What is it?”

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“Your ego.”

“Are you trying to imply something?”

“I believe you’re thinking of the wrong ego, you see the one I’m referring to is a large fraction of your soul. The Ego portion of your soul controls everything from memories, emotions, and your personality. The notable thing about yours is that there are notable chunks of it missing.”

“I presume that's bad then?”

“Not necessarily, it's minor enough that you’re still able to function optimally, however the damage done to your ego is not the type that normally occurs from transferring between worlds. In facts it's much more like the Ego was wiped almost entirely, memories and all, with the exception of some fragments of personality, and that over time the Ego rebuilt itself with new experiences and a new life. Are you sure this is only your third life?”

“Huh? What are you saying? Of course it is!”

“Ignore that, it was a stupid question, if you had a fourth life and you lost your ego from it you wouldn’t remember it. Overall it means your ego has been broken since your first life, and those missing pieces are probably why you’re a sociopath.”

“Are you calling me a sociopath?”

“You are one, aren’t you?”

“...”

“Nevertheless it seems as you spend time in this world, or perhaps as you muster up strength, those lost fragments of your ego are healing. Lost portions of personality and things which you may have struggled to understand or feel before like empathy could come back. Mind you, the fragments are only so big, so in truth your personality will stay much the same, however that burst of emotion you had that encouraged you to kill the lizard? That was caused by it.”

“Now that you mention it… I normally wouldn’t go head first into killing a diplomatic envoy regardless of how incompetent the moron was.”

“I should note that it was a sudden burst of recovery which itself stabilized after a short while, so you won't be acting like that all the time. It seems more like your body was trying to adjust to it as smoothly as it could, and that resulted in your headache.”

“So let me get this all straight, I have a headache, because the part of my soul that contains my memories and personality was wiped before even my first life and eventually rebuilt itself and the remaining parts are now healing?”

“Yep, that about sums it up.”

“I feel more confused than before you started talking.”

“No matter, let me just say this; this has some major implications, of which you likely wont understand even if I told you. Not to mention its only all just a number of incomplete theories. Either way there’s a lot about you in particular that I don’t yet understand, and as the days go by just as many questions are raised as questions are answered.”

“I’m… Not sure where to go with this.”

“Nowhere really, in truth I was mostly curious if you knew about what was happening yourself, and hoped that you could explain it a bit more to me, however as I predicted you have no memory of whatever may have caused this. I’m unsure if this ‘Being X’ you speak of so often in our chats has much to do with it, but I’ll accept it as the answer for now, though I suspect it's potentially something else entirely. Oh yeah, and one last thing… You do realize you have wings… right?”

“Huh?”

“Wings… You’re a demon, you have wings.”

I just stared at him, questioning why he hadn’t said this before, he only shook his head, “No matter, I’ll let you wake up now, your headache will probably be gone by the time you awaken regardless.”

I woke up and a week passed. The week was mostly filled with preparations, of which I didn’t have to take much part in. There wasn’t much to prepare as in truth, we were only taking the Goblin Riders and some of the Kijin. The attack was at night and set to be in the swamps of the Lizardmen as planned. After finding out I had wings, not much actually changed. Wings made it easier to fly faster with less energy, sure, but they were awful at changing direction quickly, so I still relied on magic for that.

The others were riding there considering Rimuru and I were the only ones capable of flying, and they needed at least some leader with them to meet up with the Lizardmen. Therefore I was, much like Souei, in charge of scouting as well as emergency response if needed. Souei was more set out to scout the flanks while I hovered just above the main army.

However I quickly noticed a problem, the Lizardmen were fighting. If I recalled correctly we told them specifically not to engage. However upon closer look it was immediately obvious the reason. They were led by that incompetent bafoon.

I admit he’s got at least some things going for him, he’s brave and at least a caring leader, however he’s still egotistical and ignorant, among other things. The only major good thing going for him is the fact he’s highly charismatic with his forces. His presence alone seems to be a big boost to the morale of the Lizardmen, but that doesn’t make up for the fact he engaged them alone.

(‘Rimuru, we’ve got a… Well I wouldn’t say its a problem so much as its a situation.’)

(‘What is it?’)

(‘We told the Lizardmen not to engage right?’)

(‘Yeah?’)

(‘Well they’re engaging. Specifically that Gabiru guy is.’)

(‘Yeah I believe there might be a situation with the lizardmen in general, I believe we found the daughter of the chief here as well, something might have happened.’)

(‘It looks like he might get surrounded here soon, if things go south should I save the lizardmen? Normally I wouldn’t mind for an incompetent leader to pay for his stupid actions, however if it strengthens the enemy…’)

(‘I suppose we have to then don’t we. Besides, regardless we’re basically allies here, there’s no reason not to. Don’t do anything that would put yourself in too much danger though.’)

(‘Understood, I’ll watch for now.’)

After just another minute however, the Lizardmen were not only surrounded, but Gabiru himself was fighting against what appeared to be one of the Orc leaders of sorts. I spotted a small number of these larger orcs, and given the fact there’s multiple I ruled out the possibility that it's the Orc Lord.

For what it's worth, Gabiru was a decent fighter, it was just covered by layers of incompetence. If someone actually put effort into training him to fix said incompetence he could easily have been a much more skilled leader. Nevertheless he’s losing so I’ll have to probably save his ass momentarily.

And almost on queue an axe began to swing down at the defeated Gabiru. Seeing my queue I launched myself down, letting gravity do most of the work propelling me downwards as I utilized my claws to slice through and destroy the Orc’s axe, causing him to quickly step back, startled. The pieces of the tool fell onto the ground, much of them becoming implanted into the soft and wet soil. Gabiru seemed just as startled as he narrowly dodged a falling piece of the now broken axe.

“T-The child from the village!”

“Child?!”

Pulling my arm across my chest and creating an glowing magical red orb I threw it quickly towards the Orc, an attack launched in a mixture of a show of power and just generalized anger, however I accidentally seemed to go a bit overboard, with the one magical orb seemingly just one of nearly a hundred I had made in the air and launched behind me. The entire area where I had launched the attack was now lined with smoldering craters with the only ‘corpse’ remaining being the scorched remains of the largest Orc, which seemed to rain down in no less than a dozen pieces.

“I uh… retract my statement.”

“Well then… I suppose I don’t need to hold back any more…”

“That was holding back?!”

I flew up quickly into the air, wind blowing small grains of dirt away from where I was standing as I now hovered above the armies as I noticed the others also engaging the Orcs throughout. Quickly however, I prepared what I intended to do.

Over the past few weeks I had been looking into something, primarily the use of magic to exploit physics and recreate processes inherently complex yet extremely damaging at minimal cost. Gathering molecules and atoms from the air I create over a hundred condensed barriers filled with these and scattered across where the Orcs were standing. Lowering them down, their small size makes them unnoticable to the orcs.

Now I condense it, shrinking the barrier smaller and smaller, increasing pressure. Then I use electrical magic, heating up the air hotter than the surface of the sun, all in a pressurized and condensed space. Through a few other minor steps it was ready, a spell I had only tested on smaller, isolated occasions. Luckily I had managed to find a way to dissipate hostile radiation through magicules, meaning what I’m about to do won’t have a prolonged effect on the swamps.

Now…

I raised my hand before lowering it towards the ground rapidly, “Go! RAGNAROK!”

The barriers released, and in an instant all that could be seen was a bright flash of light. I held back quite a bit on each orb. Theoretically I could reach the power of a thermonuclear bomb if I had enough, but that would kill the Lizardmen and Kijin. Each explosion was massive, easily matching Benimaru’s Hell Flares in size. However its advantage was just how many I could cast and how few Magicules it cost.

Each one had the size roughly equivalent to one of Benimaru’s Hell Flares, however now looking at the ground of the over 100 I had just set off, the Orc Army was decimated in a massive range from the Lizardmen army. Unfortunately it did take a bit of magicules to dissipate the radiation instantly and prevent it from becoming an issue. I had heard of Nuclear Magic before, however from the way it was described, it clearly is not this. This is fission magic if anything, not whatever people in this world see as ‘Nuclear Magic.’

Hovering down to the ground I could already hear the collective shocked grunts of all the Lizardmen, with Gabiru’s eyes looking like they were about to pass out.

“T-That's your full power?!”

“Nope!”

Gabiru fell onto his back, passed out in shock, though after a few moments his subordinates seemed to wake him up again.

(‘Hey uuuuh… Tanya…’)

(‘Yes Rimuru?’)

(‘Did you just… Literally nuke the Orcs? Like fussion and everything?’)

(‘Who’s to say?’)

(‘Don’t give me that cute voice, you just unleashed the power of 100 miniature nuclear bombs on the Orcs!’)

(‘The SALT Treaties don’t exist in this world, Rimuru… Now that I mention it neither does the Geneva Convention…’)

(‘Don’t.’)

(‘Did you just insert yourself into my mind only to ask about Ragnarok?’)

(‘I intended to tell you I spotted the Orc Lord before you NUKED THE FUCKING PIGS!’)

(‘Hehe. I’ll be right there.’)

“Hey Lizardmen, we found the Orc Lord. You can come or… Not. Frankly I don’t care.”

“Y-Yes! Let’s take down this Orc Lord!”

They quickly moved to group up by the Orc Lord, though I quickly launched myself up again and flew next to Rimuru who was hovering above and watching the engagement. Not sure why the second strongest member of the village was just hovering here, but I suppose now’s not the time to question it.

“So… Are you handling this one?”

“If things go south, yes. We don’t need you recreating Hiroshima and Nagasaki on the Orc Lord. How are you avoiding radiation, anyways?”

“It's a bit complicated, but it doesn’t take up too much magicules, so the skill overall is fairly easy to use, at least it is with Sage.”

“I see… I think I’ll worry about making my own means to manipulate physics rather than just remaking the Manhattan Project.”

“Well I’ll be watching from here. I would’ve liked to handle the Orc Lord directly, but you haven’t done much and frankly It’d look bad if you did nothing at all.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying for a leader, as well as being stronger than all of them down there, you barely did anything in this battle. A leader leads, and with your power you have no excuse to be an armchair general.”

“You’re right, I’ll handle the Orc Lord myself.”

“You better hurry up, that Majin guy is about to kill the lizard.”

“Huh?! Oh s-!”

He quickly flew down just in time to block the attack aiming to kill Gabiru, handing him potions as he promptly began beating up the Majin. The Majin, seemingly attempting to call upon the aid of ‘his’ Orc Lord, promptly is decapitated and eaten. Why everyone just let him eat the Majin is beyond me.

The Orc Lord proceeded to evolve into a ‘Demon Lord’ which in of itself intrigues me, mostly what requirements there are, since he seemed to need to do it by devouring people. Though that skill he has is unique to him, and there's supposedly many other Demon Lords, does that mean they need to devour souls? Or is it just a power or magicule requirement that he reached by eating enough?

Before I could go off an internal monologue about the potential nature of Demon Lords, Rimuru quickly engaged the Orc Lord himself, ordering his subordinates to stand back. While I did tell him he should fight, that didn’t mean alone. Nevertheless it seemed not much was actually working on the Orc Disaster, which led to the supposedly brilliant idea in Rimuru’s mind to just try and eat the Orc Lord?

I have no idea what's going on in that slime’s head. But surely the solution isn’t to just eat him. All I know is that in its current state, with Rimuru’s slime now covering all over parts of the Orc Lord’s body, I have no means to take out just the Orc Lord to save Rimuru. Which means if the Orc Lord begins to beat Rimuru, I’ll have to destroy them both. He survived fire, but will he survive a Thermonuclear explosion occurring in his lower intestine?

After about another minute, as it turned out, the solution was to just eat him. Rimuru eventually popped out of a long phallic shaped slime pillar before descending down in his human form. The Orcs, as I predicted, seemed to lose hostility and regain control over their mind, likely losing the ‘Devour’ skill without the Orc Lord.

The following day, about all the races gathered inside the cave of the Lizardmen to discuss the repercussions of the battle, and the fate of the Orcs. My personal hope, considering the fact they supposedly lost their homeland, is that they join us and contribute to the labor force. As of now I’m basically the one in charge of the town’s expansion and I can see clearly that further hands are needed for rapid expansion.

At the meeting, as expected, were the Orcs, represented by what seemed to be one of the Orc Lord’s closest advisors or generals, the Lizardmen, represented by their chief, with Gabiru somewhere else at the moment. Furthermore, representing Tempest was the Kijin, with no clear leader or representative outside of Rimuru, though Benimaru seemed to be the leading figure, Rimuru himself as the ‘Chairman’ and leader of the conference, and myself representing… all the demons… in the forest? I don’t think I’m actually representing much of anything at all…

Treyni was also there, basically both representing the Dryads as well as functioning as a sort of mediator or witness to the meeting here. She was effectively a neutral power, considering the Dryads were basically the only ‘protectors’ of the forest without Veldora. As such she would be the first one to order the beginning of the conference, “Chairman Rimuru Tempest, please begin the conference.”

I’m not sure what Rimuru was doing, but if slimes could sweat, he was certainly doing that now, I may have to take over here. “Uh… I’ve never led a meeting like this before, so it’s not my strong suit. So I’ll say what’s on my mind and then let Tanya handle it!”

For fucks sake… Whatever I’d probably do better than him as a diplomat anyways.

“I’d like you to save your deliberations until after that. I’ll start by saying this: I don’t intend to charge the Orcs with any crimes. I know this may upset the Lizardmen, who suffered the most casualties, but hear me out. The cause of all this was starvation due to a famine. Anyone, of any race, might have made the same choices under those conditions. Of course, this is just my public stance on the matter.”

The lizardman chief leaned forwards on the bench, though I couldn’t tell how he was reacting to Rimuru’s decision yet. “Then may we hear your personal thoughts on it, as well?”

“I’ve taken all of the Orcs’ sins upon myself. If anyone has a complaint, bring it to me.”

Okay, Jesus.

The de-facto representative of the Orcs stood up quickly, from the looks I’ve seen of him he’s been highly mournful since the Orc Lord’s death. It's likely he, and most of the Orcs for that matter, blame themselves for what happened. “P-Please wait. Surely there is no logic to-”

“That was my promise with the Demon Lord Geld.”

That silenced him real quick as he simply stumbled back and sat down, looking down at the floor in response.

The lizardman chief crossed his arms, he was likely not entirely pleased, but he was a competent leader, so he seemed able to keep any emotions under check, if he was even that upset in the first place, “I see. However I feel that answer is somewhat unfair.”

I guess I’ll take it from here, “When you defeat a nation in a defensive or otherwise illegal war, who do you punish? More often than not it's the leadership you punish. In this case it was the Orc Lord and its generals. All of them, however, are dead. The only real exception is him, however from what I saw he didn’t take part in any of the fighting whatsoever. Rarely throughout history is the army punished for the actions of their leadership unless they violate international law while doing so. Since there is no real international law among monsters, the soldiers simply followed the orders of their leadership, likely unable to even resist it. Heck I’m sure even the Orc Lord couldn’t resist it. The only law among monsters is, from what I’ve seen, is Survival of the Fittest. And while I believe it is primitive, until we organize into proper societies, that’s ultimately the ruling law.”

“I see… That is a fair point. But there is one thing I must know. What will be done with the Orcs? You’ve said you will not charge them with any crimes, does that mean you intend to accept all of the survivors?”

“There’s about over 120,000 of them right? Well let me propose this. Of course as the Chancellor of our village and not its direct leader, Rimuru would have the final say, however a treaty encompassing the forest could likely prove beneficial to all. We wouldn’t want to start fighting amongst each other either, after all.”

“So what do you suggest?”

“The Lizardmen would supply a clean water source and fish, among a small number of other things gathered in the swamps and lakes, the goblins will offer places to live, our village will give processed goods, and the Orcs will contribute labor. The monster races of the Jura Forest will form an alliance, the specific terms of which, if desired, can be negotiated further.”

The Orcs seemed shocked at even having a chance to be included. If I had to guess, they likely assumed they would be exiled out of the forest and sent back to their homeland, which according to what I've heard from Rimuru, is a barren wasteland. “A-And you’re saying we could also take part in this alliance?”

“You don’t have much elsewhere to go, right? We don’t want to just excuse all of you for your crimes just to send you back to starve and cannibalize each other. We’re offering a place to stay in exchange for work. I won’t tolerate anyone who can’t contribute to society.”

The goblins began getting teary-eyed, were they really this happy about this? To be fair they were all starving just a while ago. Something like this must be a best case scenario for them. A long-term stable employment with a stable pay of food and shelter, and whenever we get an economy rolling, likely some money as well. Though they quickly got on their knees, bowing and proclaiming, “Yes, ma’am!”

Kinda creeped me out, but at least it means I’ll have some hard working and committed workers to build up the village. The de-facto head of the Orcs spoke again, “Of course! Of course we will! We will devote our lives to our work!”

Okay… That's even creepier, however I like the mentality. Good subordinates they will be indeed. Probably wouldn’t be hard to convince Rimuru to let them serve directly under me.

Looking over to the Lizardmen for a response, the Chief quickly nodded, “We would be honored to join forces with you.”

“Well Rimuru, you’re technically the head of our village, so you do have the final say on our village’s involvement.”

“How could I say no to that? I was thinking much the same thing! Though I was more thinking from a cooperative standpoint, I’m sure you were more thinking of it on a strategic level.”

Turning now to Treyni, who I should probably get the consent of considering she’s a Dryad, “This all okay with you? You are a Dryad after all, the forest is kind of your jurisdiction to an extent.”

“Certainly. The Treants under my protection will share the bounty of the forest, as well. I believe we can alleviate the Orcs’ hunger for some time.”

The Orcs were now certainly crying. How did the Orcs even have over 200,000 people if they were starving that much?

Treyni then sat up, “Then… As a caretaker of the forest, I, Treyni, hereby pledge to acknowledge Great Rimuru as King and Demon Peer Tanya as Chancellor of the Great Forest of Jura…”

“King?!”

“Yeah I should’ve expected having that role dropped on me.”

“...and declare the Jura Forest Alliance to be established under King Rimuru and Chancellor Tanya.”

“H-Huh? How did I get dragged into this, T-Tanya, this was your alliance!”

“I mean you are my superior.”

“I-I… Alright, I guess that’s how it's gonna be, so I’m counting on all of you!”

Later on, after the meeting as everyone prepared to head back to the Villiage the prospect of naming the Orcs came up.

“I have to name all of them, don’t I Tanya… Ugh this is going to take days.”

“You know, they’ll be working under me technically, you could always make them my subordinates and have me handle naming them.”

“You know what, that works out! It is technically your alliance after all… Even if I did get dragged into being its King.”

“I’ll worry about naming them, you head back to the village.”

“Don’t run out of magicules though! It's still over 120,000 of them!”

I proceeded to spend the next few days naming all of them. I named the leader Geld for the sake of ‘sentimentality.’ In truth I didn’t care much, but I knew the name would mean a lot to him and instill more loyalty.

With that I now had over 120,000 Orcs under my command, and with a stable and loyal labor force at my disposal, expansion is coming, and it's coming fast.

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