It was rare for Raphael to say “I dunno” like that. Whether through prediction or calculation, it’d always provide me with some kind of information. If it had nothing to offer, then what just happened really was beyond the realm of understanding.
In other words, nothing I could handle.
I looked around, surprised, trying to gauge everyone’s reactions. Leon and Luminus seemed just as freaked out as me—not angry about Guy’s behavior so much as trying their hardest to grasp what had just unfolded. Everyone else in the room? Forget it. They didn’t even see the swords move; this was way beyond their comprehension. Diablo, at least, was visibly surprised—maybe something about this encounter was familiar to him.
Resolving to ask him later, I decided to stop Guy and Chloe. The latter was already readying her own attack, all but declaring the next move for herself. They seemed so friendly with each other a moment ago. Why was all this happening…?
They clashed swords several more times. They were single strikes, not part of a combo—it was like watching a photographic sequence of a sword fight, one stance after the next. I think. And really, “I think” was about the best I could do.
“Stop! Stopppp!!”
So I threw myself between them. It was a wager, based on my guess of where the next strike was, and apparently it paid off.
“Whoa, don’t just butt in. I could’ve ripped you apart if we got that wrong.”
“Yeah, Rimuru. Guy wasn’t serious—he was just testing me. But I’m glad you’re concerned for me!”
Chloe then pulled me into a hug and kissed me on the cheek. Again, it was like a jump cut—one frame, then the next. I had no chance of dodging it—let me just say, it was like an act of God. An irresistible force.
Then, the moment she gave that kiss, Chloe shrank down—or really, returned to regular old kid Chloe. “Ugh!” she said, bright red and quivering. “Why’d you have to hug and k-kiss Rimuru like that?”
“Was that Chronoa just now?” I asked.
“Yeah. She switched with me.”
As she explained it, Chloe withstood the first attack, but Chronoa took over after that. They looked exactly the same, so it was a little hard to tell.
“Rimuru, I appreciate you stepping in to help Chloe, but I can’t allow you to get any more…familiar with her.”
Leon waited for Chloe to calm down and then picked her up.
“Oh, come on, Leon! You worry too much about me!”
He put her back in her seat and fixed Guy with an icy glare. “Guy, I thought you weren’t going to touch her.”
“Yeah, sorry. Just wanted to test her out a bit. I wasn’t gonna kill her, of course.”
“Regardless. You may not want to kill someone, but your power’s beyond any measure.”
Leon seemed pretty bent out of shape, uninterested in letting Guy have his way. In another moment, the verbal tirade began. It took Chloe herself intervening to end it—explaining that Guy didn’t intend to hurt her, and that she wanted to test him out as well. It looked like she got a little carried away, too; it wasn’t strictly Guy’s fault.
If I had to guess, I’d say Chloe—or Chronoa—wanted to gauge the strength of Guy, the man who likely caused her death in the future. But what happened just now wasn’t the future she experienced. She had a new power this time—the ultimate skill Yog-Sothoth, Lord of Time, if I recall—and I was sure she wanted to see if it’d work on Guy.
…!! A new possibility has arisen. If the powers of the unique skill Time Travel, when merged with the ultimate skill Yog-Sothoth, allow the subject Chloe Aubert to control time itself…then Analyze and Assess will always fail, since it cannot evaluate phenomena separate from its own time line.
Oh, is that it…? So Chloe’s new ability basically lets her stop time?
Raphael was currently doing assessment work on Time Travel, but reportedly it’d take a while to finish up. It sounded like Chloe just inserted that unique skill straight into Yog-Sothoth.
I’m sure it is hard to understand data you can’t even measure—but regardless, Chloe had made it her own. Astounding as it was, stopping the flow of time felt like such a cheat. No wonder my sped-up senses couldn’t track her. If we’re all letting time flow around us, there’s no way we can observe something frozen in that dimension.
But hang on. Assuming that theory is correct, if someone can’t access a world frozen in time, there’s no way for them to interact with someone who is in that world, right?
Understood. This interpretation seems correct.
Oh man. Part of me wanted to hope that, and it seemed like the only logical answer. I mean, even Chronoa was killed by Guy once—but if she could stop time, she was untouchable. It made perfect sense.
Conversely, did that mean Chloe could fend off Guy? She was just a cute little girl, and really, she was stronger than me, even. When it dawned on me, I broke into a cold sweat that nobody else noticed.
Either way, Leon backed down, and peace prevailed once more.
“You value Ramiris a great deal…and I value Chloe a great deal. I’d advise you to make a note of that.” Leon sat down, making it clear he wouldn’t allow that a second time.
“As would I,” Luminus added. “Guy, I will freely recognize you as the strongest of all, but losing our help would only harm you in the long run, no? If you do intend to antagonize us, that is a different story, but you should know that we will both treat any attack on Chloe as a hostile act.”
Luminus must’ve been pretty pissed herself, rebuking Guy right alongside Leon. In situations like these, it was usually a bad idea to specify what was valuable to you—but with Guy, the opposite was true. If Guy really wanted to be hostile, there was nothing you could do. That was why they both overtly told him to lay off Chloe.
“All right, all right! I’m not here to start trouble, okay? Just stay out of my way, and I’m not gonna touch anything you hold dear, y’know?”
Guy, to his credit, acted sensibly about it, promising he’d keep Chloe safe.
And the fact that this precious little girl was far stronger than all of us was something I decided to keep to myself.
The summit came to a close in the evening. Shuna prepared dinner for us, so we moved over to the banquet hall. I couldn’t help but notice that nobody seemed in a hurry to leave until we’d finished the meal.
The main dish was a stew of cubed pork (or some kinda monster’s meat that resembled pork), accompanied by fried eggplant, tofu with thick ankake sauce, and miso soup. This all came with steamed, fluffy, jet-black rice—the blackspell rice we stumbled upon a while back. It wasn’t a multicourse meal or anything, but considering this whole summit wasn’t even planned for, I didn’t want to hear any complaints.
“Oh? This isn’t tempura.”
By the sound of Luminus’s grumbling, she must’ve liked tempura a lot more than I’d realized.
“No need to worry, Luminus. This should be even tastier. Never underestimate Rimuru’s lust for good food.”
Hinata had my back, although I couldn’t tell why. I wasn’t even sure if I should be happy about it. Honestly, getting complimented for my love of cuisine didn’t mean much if that was the only thing about me she was willing to compliment. But whatever.
So our little dinner event began, and fortunately, all the guests seemed to enjoy themselves.
“Ah… I see. Yeah, your cuisine around here ain’t bad.” Guy sounded genuinely impressed.
“These flavors mystify me…but at this level, I’d say it passes muster.”
Eating everything and not complaining about it was, I supposed, Leon’s way of giving a meal high praise.
“Mmm… You were right after all, Hinata. Another rare and exotic spread, but quite attractive nonetheless.”
“Oooh, this really takes me back. Being able to taste this one more time… It makes me glad to be alive.”
Luminus seemed satisfied…and Hinata was hyping me up way too much. But I supposed this was her first Japanese-style pork stew in, what, two thousand years?
“Would you have preferred white rice?” I asked her.
“I appreciate the thought…but I’m used to this kind of thing by now.”
Oh? Well, good. Two millennia had given her a lot of time to sample all sorts of stuff, I’m sure, so the “wrong” color wasn’t about to make her wrinkle her nose. Besides, unlike Chloe, Hinata apparently hadn’t been able to actually taste anything she ate during those two millennia. All she could see was Chloe’s visual feed, so the mere act of eating was a real thrill. Considering—even imagining—what she went through, I could see why this was such a divine experience.
So the dinner banquet proceeded along to generally good reviews. Once it was over, the demon lords rapidly prepared to head home. They were more than welcome to spend the night, but now that their business was done, they didn’t seem interested in sticking around.
“Chloe, if you ever get sick of this place, don’t be afraid to contact me. I’ll come pick you up at once.”
Leon still hadn’t given up, by the sounds of things. We had actually argued a bit about who would take in Chloe.
“But my friends are here…and I like Rimuru’s place.”
We wound up respecting Chloe’s wishes, but it was safe to assume Leon wasn’t gonna let it rest. He didn’t even try to hide his attachment to her. I had my reservations about his approach, but there was no doubting his fervent desire to keep her safe and protected.
Chloe could feel it, too.
“Leon, I’m really glad to see you worried so much about me. But you don’t need to be all that worried, okay? I’m not a kid anymore!”
She gave Leon a hug. Leon’s face betrayed a gentle smile as he patted Chloe’s head. They were raised virtually as siblings way back when, and Leon definitely cherished her.
Then she separated from him and shifted into her adult form.
“Here, see? With Chronoa’s power, I can go back to my grown-up self. So quit worrying, all right?”
She smiled. I assume she wanted to put Leon’s mind at ease, but that smile packed an incredible punch. It was endearing—fleeting, in a way—but it revealed all the strength in her heart; there was just that kind of charm to it.
“All right,” he said with a chuckle. “You’ve become such a wonderful woman…but I’m always going to cherish you. You can count on me anytime.”
Leon always was a heartthrob like that. He had the composure, you could say, of a grown man—and it suited him well. No way I could even begin to imitate that, I thought as I watched—but then Leon turned around and flashed me a steely glare. The difference was intense.
“She says she’s a grown-up now,” he told me. “Does that mean you’ve gone and—?”
“No! Of course not! I don’t even technically have a gender!”
Talk about a huge misunderstanding. I take back what I said about his maturity and composure because he certainly didn’t treat me with any of that. I worked tirelessly to defend myself, and Chloe yelled at him once she caught wind of it, so I figured Leon was sufficiently convinced…but even now, it was only that way on the surface. If you want more evidence, I present this little tidbit he whispered to me as he left:
“I think you know this, but don’t you dare do anything to put Chloe in harm’s way, you understand me?”
This struck me as overprotective, but then, Leon had expended every method possible to search for Chloe, who’d been summoned from the same world as him. It made sense that he worried about her. He went on his way without further comment, so I was happy. I promised him that Chloe and I would come visit, and thanks to her, I think Tempest would be building formal ties with his domain of El Dorado pretty soon. He kind of irritated me sometimes—like a brother-in-law does, I suppose—but I could deal with it.
After Leon went on his way, it was Luminus’s turn to dote on Chloe.
“I suppose you’ve settled down where you’ve settled down, Chloe…but to me, you are a valued and trusted friend. If you have any difficulty, I will gladly discuss it with you, so do not hesitate to bring it up. Take care!”
And this is the sister-in-law, I’m assuming? Not that I said that out loud, of course. No need to go out of my way to anger people.
With a final farewell, Luminus and her entourage sped off. Hinata was gone, too, so that just left Guy by himself. I turned toward him, wondering if he was gonna leave, and there I saw Diablo picking a fight with him.
“Now, shall I continue my story from before—?” Diablo began.
“Nah, I’ve heard more than enough of it.”
“Keh-heh-heh-heh-heh… No need to be shy.”
“Can you stop trying to seduce me with that garbage, too?!”
What the hell is Diablo doing?!
“Tch! Well, so be it, then. Allow me to change the subject. I would love to discuss Testarossa’s and my other underlings’ work ethic and some amusing anecdotes related to Rimuru. I know you were interested in that—”
I was astounded at just how much he wanted to hear his own voice. Guy seemed to agree with me.
“No, no, I’m sure you’re all busy right now, so I’ll stop by again when things calm down a little.”
Guy wasted no time turning him down and fleeing. I guess even Guy got flustered sometimes—it was kind of odd to see. I couldn’t help but feel he was a lot more approachable than I thought. He still kept you on your toes, but maybe I didn’t have so much to worry about with him anymore. He had accepted Chloe as a Hero, and all the other big issues were out of the way.
That just left Yuuki’s next moves as he fled to the East—and what’s about to happen over there. Whether I’ll trust him again, I dunno…but war, huh? I let out a sigh. It’s just one thing after another these days. And in my dejection, I couldn’t help but wish for peace as soon as I could grab it.
It was only an oral agreement, but gaining the cooperation of two more demon lords was enormous. If war really was to erupt, having allied nations on your side was a comfort in itself. I could expect support from them, and if things got really bad, I could even discuss evacuating my citizens to their nations.
No war at all would be best, of course, although that depended on the other side’s actions. What will be, will be. But whining wouldn’t help with anything, so I decided it was time to take action. First, I needed some firm ground to stand on—something that ensured a battle against the Empire wouldn’t cause any problems. I secretly resolved to prepare for anything and everything possibly headed our way.