REWARDS AND EVOLUTIONS

The day after I revived approximately seven hundred thousand imperial soldiers and officers, we had our troops who played an active role in the defense of Tempest lined up in rows across the coliseum. The rank-and-file soldiers had filled every available seat in the house.

Today, we were holding a victory celebration. We were still at war with the Empire, technically, but we planned this as a necessary tool for boosting morale. Bacchus, dispatched from the Crusaders, and the overcomers serving Luminus were also in attendance. Jiwu had killed them, but fortunately, everything took place inside the labyrinth. They had all been properly revived, and they were kind enough to accept our apologies. “It’s our lack of experience,” they told me, but—you know—this crime was committed on our land, after all. We could at least treat them well.

Anyway, I’m just happy the damage was kept to a minimum. We had a deluxe feast planned for the second half of the celebration, so hopefully they’d indulge to their hearts’ content.

We also had a few guests from abroad in the VIP seating. That included Alvis, who joined the defense, as well as Phobio and the Twin Wings who arrived after, elite troops in tow.

“Lady Milim is restless and worried, so Lady Frey sent us to assist you.”

“Yes, but I’m not sure she had anything to worry about. We were convinced you’d win all along, Sir Rimuru.”

Lucia, the blond Twin Wing, and Claire, the silver-haired one, gave me their reassurance in the most sonorous of voices. I guess I made Milim worry for me, but the news of our victory ought to set her straight again. Our city was safe, thanks to Veldora and Ramiris, and I was sure things would be pretty peaceful soon.

“I was sent over as a contact,” Phobio told me. “The magical calls weren’t coming through anymore, so I was dispatched just in case. And also… No, pardon me.”

The way he put it, he would go back at once and bring reinforcements if things were looking bleak for us. As the fastest member of their group, Phobio was selected for the job, based on the possibility that magic wouldn’t be an option due to magicule disruption. He was about to say something after that but stopped midsentence. The way he was looking at Alvis bothered me, but I decided to ignore it. I figured it was already finished business.

I thanked the three of them and showed them to their box seats.

After that, there was another group—guests from Dwargon. I saw Jaine there, arch-wizard of the Dwargon royal court. Dolph, captain of the Pegasus Knights, was serving as her bodyguard.

Jaine, for the most part, used me as her personal complaint board. “No forbidden spell casting in the Forest of Jura,” she told me—but she was even angrier about me having Primal Demons under my wing. To be honest, I did have my regrets about that, but what could I do now? They just kinda showed up when I wasn’t paying attention. They call that a force majeure in insurance contracts, don’t they?

“No, it’s not merely a force majeure! I’ve lived for quite a long time, I’ll have you know, but I’ve never been so shocked and dismayed in my entire life!”

“I’m sorry.”

I had no choice but to apologize. I appeased her as best I could, explained my side of the story, and after enough cajoling, she seemed to be a bit more satisfied.

It would’ve been nice if Jaine could’ve left like that, but we needed to have a meeting to discuss the future. In fact, that seemed to be the purpose of her visit. Sixty thousand troops were still deployed in front of Dwargon’s eastern city, all under Yuuki’s command. I told her that I had a tentative war alliance with Yuuki, and that was why war hadn’t broken out over there. Tensions were still running high, though, so we couldn’t leave things like this. Basically, I wanted to discuss matters with Yuuki and figure out a future course of action. We’d released the captured Laplace, entrusting him with a message from me, and now we were just waiting for Yuuki to contact us.

So I took Jaine and Dolph to the VIP seats as well, inviting them to celebrate our victory with us.

It was thus an international audience watching the proceedings that day in the coliseum. I was seated on a chair placed atop a raised podium, in slime form. Behind me were Rigurd and Rigur, the rest of our civil servants lined up behind them on both sides.

Among the columns below me were the Ten Dungeon Marvels, people who normally wouldn’t be seen in public. They were the stars of the day, though, so their presence was perfectly natural. Showing off the labyrinth bosses to the world normally wouldn’t be a great idea, but today, at least, it was fine—there were no civilians in the audience, after all, or adventurers from our Volunteer Army.

The first one to speak was Shuna, who was standing next to me. She gave a long, impassioned speech, explicitly stating beforehand that these were my words. It was a great performance, but I didn’t write any of it—that was all Shuna. In a way, she’s a much more effective secretary than either of my actual ones. I’m terrible with this speech stuff, and she’s been a huge help on that front. Shion’s not really suited for public speaking, and I’d be anxious leaving that job to Diablo—he’d just talk about how great I was from start to finish.

As I internally thanked Shuna for her presence, I thought over our next steps. During this event, I wanted to announce our achievements and, as I did, give out rewards to my people. In other words, I was going to try “awakening” (or whatever it turned out to be) my staff.

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