Standing around chatting wasn't very productive, so we decided to move.
I escorted Guy to the VIP guest pavilion in the Monster Nation.
The furnishings there had been handpicked by Myormail, so if they got destroyed, the losses would be catastrophic.
There were even art pieces of considerable value on display.
It was a special reception hall reserved for the highest-ranking guests—only royalty and nobility were escorted here.
True to my taste, everything had been chosen to evoke a sense of wabi-sabi elegance rather than flashy opulence, which spoke volumes about Myormail's refined sensibilities.
But that was beside the point. If Guy decided to go berserk, well, that would be that.
Since there was no other room befitting a guest of his stature, I had to accept some degree of damage. After all, you couldn't exactly escort the strongest Demon Lord to an ordinary reception room.
Still half-resigned, I led him inside when— "Hey, not bad taste at all! I'm fond of this kind of furnishing too."
Guy was complimenting me.
That was unexpected.
I'd assumed a tyrant like him would have no appreciation for wabi-sabi.
Though now that I thought about it, Oda Nobunaga was said to have had similar tastes...
Maybe the more hot-tempered and tyrannical a person was, the more they gravitated toward that kind of aesthetic to find calm in their hearts.
Well, that was just my own speculation, but bringing him here had clearly been the right call.
I settled into an elegant high-backed chair carved from fragrant wood and sat across from Guy.
On the small table before us, fragrant black tea had been set out.
It might look simple at first glance, but the attention to detail was absolutely extraordinary...
"You've got real style! My lot could never pull this off. Maybe I should send them here to train."
He seemed quite pleased, which was a relief.
Come to think of it, since arriving in this world, I'd basically been able to do whatever I wanted.
This was the first time I'd gone so far out of my way to accommodate someone.
Well, perhaps the second time—the first being when I met Veldora.
Regardless of whether I could win or not, I just didn't want trouble. I wanted to avoid conflict if at all possible.
Because this wasn't something that could be brushed aside—real damage was certain to follow.
"Oh, really? You're the first person I've ever brought here, actually. This is our top-tier reception room—we only bring guests we want to impress."
"Hoh? So you're trying to impress me?"
"Absolutely. If I couldn't even manage that, what's the point of being a Demon Lord? If I was willing to throw away my pride, I'd have been living a quiet life skulking around in the shadows long ago."
A jab to start.
I was making it clear that I wouldn't be pushed around.
Depending on his reaction, I might need to adjust my approach.
More importantly, figuring out why he was here and what he wanted—that was the real priority.
When he'd seen the Demon Peer and reacted with "Really?" I could tell he'd received a report from someone.
It was almost certainly
Besides, this nation had completely eliminated spies—I could say that with full confidence.
Since intelligence gathering was my top priority, it was only natural to defend against the same thing from others.
By every means at our disposal, this nation had purged all spies.
"Oh-ha-ha. Playing mind games with me? You're a fun one!
Anyway, no trouble. The reason I came today is I heard you've been stirring things up with the Empire.
Yeah, you probably guessed—it was Dino who told me. He's here, right? In this place.
Well, he reported to me, and from what I heard, you killed close to a million soldiers?
And you've got several Demon Peer-level subordinates.
I thought the ones you brought to that Banquet of Demon Lords were the only ones, but then I heard there were more, and that piqued my interest."
After saying all that, he elegantly took a sip of black tea.
Quite the performance. Like some king from a distant land.
Well, he was a Demon Lord, so technically he was a king.
But this Guy—despite claiming there'd be no probing, he'd come straight for the jugular.
Basically, he was assessing my military strength. But it wasn't just that, was it?
Was he displeased with me making enemies of the Empire?
"Certainly, I do have several subordinates at the Demon Peer level. The three you just took out with your magic were among them.
Of course, there are others. I'm not going to tell you everything, though.
Wars in this world are decided by individual power over numbers, right? It's natural to focus on strengthening individual abilities."
"Hoh, so there are more. By the way—are you an 'otherworlder'? You're a slime, aren't you?"
"Hmm? Oh? You didn't know? I'm what you'd call a 'reincarnator'—someone whose otherworlder soul became a slime."
"You're serious?"
"Dead serious!"
Guy and I stared at each other.
Wait—he didn't know? I'd assumed that was common knowledge by now.
I'd been open about it myself, and I thought the rulers of every nation knew.
Maybe it was dangerous to assume everyone had all the information. This wasn't quite a slip of the tongue, but I needed to be more careful about not revealing too much.
"Oh-ha-ha-ha-ha! That's incredible! So that's actually possible!
No wonder you're a monster that insisted on taking human form. Your Mimicry is unusually good too, so that explains the fixation.
And that makes sense for why you were able to obtain an Ultimate Skill. Normally, you can't get one that easily.
If your soul alone was strong enough to cross worlds while maintaining your identity, then having a powerful soul is only natural.
I'd suspected it was all staged by Veldora, but now it makes sense. Sorry about that."
Hmm? Staged?
Curious, I asked him to elaborate.
Apparently, Emperor Rudra and Guy had been fighting for over a thousand years.
Then, along came me.
Not only did I suddenly awaken as a true Demon Lord, but I also obtained an Ultimate Skill.
At first, they'd watched and waited, thinking it might be related to Veldora's revival or similar factors. But this clash with the Empire's army had raised questions.
According to Dino's report, my side suffered zero casualties while the entire Imperial army was annihilated.
That raised a question—was such a thing actually possible?
Would Rudra—the Emperor—really suffer such a devastating defeat against a single Demon Lord?
Even if they were merely observing, there was no reason for Rudra to sustain such losses.
Rudra's objective appeared to be the evolution of surviving soldiers. Even if dozens survived, it wouldn't have been that significant.
The last time they'd been wiped out by Veldora, some among the survivors had evolved into Sages, so it wasn't a great loss to Rudra.
His basic strategy, they said, was to give his subjects a justifying cause, train the army and expose them to threats, then find those who evolved among the survivors.
Guy had been tolerating conflicts between Demon Lords for similar reasons—he'd told me he was hoping they would fight each other and awaken as true Demon Lords.
If that was the case, then both Rudra and Guy were engaged in grand long-term strategies.
They must have had a lot of free time and patience.
This time, however, the survivors numbered zero.
That was the problem.
Having several Demon Peer-level subordinates was one thing, but with no survivors at all, it couldn't be ignored.
The reason was simple: it would mean the entire military operation had been pointless, and Rudra would never tolerate that.
It was only natural to assume some hidden motive was at work.
Even Dino's report had hinted at as much. Seriously, what was that guy doing?
So the suspicion became: was it staged?
A grand military operation, disguised as a war between Demon Lord Rimuru and the Empire, designed to strengthen my forces.
In other words—they suspected I had betrayed Guy and the other Demon Lords and defected to Emperor Rudra.
Or rather, they'd considered the possibility that I was a spy planted by Rudra from the very beginning.
Because it was simply inconceivable that a newborn monster could obtain an Ultimate Skill.
Could it be that Rudra had given me the Ultimate Skill, and I had merely evolved it further?
"So... is it actually possible to give an Ultimate Skill to someone?"
"If it's the right type of ability, it's not impossible. But what you can give is a limited, degraded version. And the recipient needs to possess a certain level of ability already. So it's not that much of a threat."
When I asked out of curiosity, he dropped that bombshell with casual ease.
I wanted to scream—you're the only person alive who could say an Ultimate Skill holder isn't a threat!
Maybe Milim was cut from the same cloth as Guy.
These differences in perception were probably what made everything so complicated.
He was eating cake that had been served, looking quite pleased—a mismatch with the topic of conversation.
Wait a moment. We were supposed to be discussing something extremely important.
Not letting myself be distracted by appearances, I focused on organizing the information.
I stabbed my fork into my own cake while sorting through my thoughts.
Sugar intake was essential for clear thinking.
Staged.
The Emperor releases Veldora and controls him simultaneously. At that point, the slime he encounters is granted an ability.
That slime, under Veldora's protection, unifies the Great Forest of Jura and awakens as a Demon Lord.
If Veldora was cooperating, awakening as a Demon Lord would be easy—that was the prediction.
However, the fact that Veldora's aura couldn't be detected was unexplained, so they probably hadn't fully believed in that theory.
So far, so good.
After that, when the slime awakened as a Demon Lord, Veldora was also revived.
There was undoubtedly some causal connection.
That slime infiltrated Guy's camp as a Demon Lord.
To devour Guy's faction from within—as the very King of
When he received the report that there were no survivors in the Imperial army, Guy had come here to assess the situation.
Since Emperor Rudra and Guy were at odds, if I was siding with Rudra, Guy had probably intended to eliminate me.
The misunderstanding was resolved because he was straightforward enough to believe my words, but one wrong step and it could have been catastrophic.
Given his power, if he'd decided I was troublesome and needed to die, that wouldn't have been surprising at all. It was fortunate that things started with a conversation.
Several strokes of luck had converged, and the misunderstanding was cleared up.
"Well, that's settled. Now it's your turn, right?
Tell me—why are there so many awakened Demon Lords here?"
There it was.
The mass awakening of Demon Lords that had started the misunderstanding.
Seeing that, Guy had nearly concluded I was Rudra's puppet.
That was why he'd come right out and asked "What's going on?" the moment we met.
He'd suspected a staged operation, and when he arrived, he'd found several beings in the middle of awakening as Demon Lords.
Suspecting was understandable. Honestly, the fact that he hadn't killed everyone outright was the real stroke of luck.
If I'd been a traitor, he was confident he could handle everyone—that was why he'd had the luxury of asking questions first.
Guy was so strong that fighting was almost impossible, but fortunately, his very strength had led to the misunderstanding being resolved without a clash.
What a complicated situation.
Well, conflict had been averted in the end, so I'd take it.
The misunderstanding was resolved, but how should I explain the mass awakening?
"Solution. Stating that it's entirely due to the King of Gluttony's ability would be accurate."
The voice from on high—Raphael, reporting for duty!
Good, that's the way to go. I had nothing else to fall back on.
As expected of Teacher Raphael—masterful at building suspense.
"Actually, here's the thing. It's my ability—the power of the King of Gluttony."
"Oh? How so?"
*(Teacher Wisdom, what's going on?)* "Solution. It is possible to convert the power of souls into infused energy and force the evolution of those who qualify."
"The King of Gluttony has the ability to infuse souls as magic energy. Of course, there's a limitation—it only works on those who qualify, those at the Demon Lord seed level."
"What? Is that true?"
*(Is that true, Teacher Wisdom?)* "Solution. (I find it difficult to understand why you insist on calling me 'Teacher,' but) yes, it's true."
"Of course it's true."
"Hoh... then could you grant this power to my servants as well?"
"Solution. That is possible."
Oh, he answered even faster than I could ask in my mind.
Somehow that made me feel a little lonely.
It was like he was saying he couldn't be bothered with me anymore.
"Solution. I have no such intention."
There was a faint sense of irritation.
I'd better not push him any further. If he abandoned me now, I'd be in real trouble.
"It might be possible. Hard to say for certain without trying, but it's likely."
"Hoh? So I just need to have enough souls ready?
I gave each of them ten thousand and there was no sign of evolution, so I thought it was pointless..."
"Those are your subordinates? The ones from the Banquet of Demon Lords—
"Yeah, Misery and another one, Hilary. They're Demon Peers, so they should have the qualifications. They can fight on par with the three I just dealt with... but as they are now, they're too weak to be any real use."
Hey now.
On par with Testa and the others, yet "not much use"?
His standards seemed rather skewed.
"You gave each of them ten thousand human souls?"
"Yeah, that's right. Since there was no sign of evolution, I saved up more. I even tried using them on myself, but it was completely pointless. So—how many do I need to prepare to evolve them?"
"Solution. Five hundred thousand."
"Five hundred thousand should do it."
Wait—hold on!
Five hundred thousand—did that mean...
"Solution. This count also includes, as an afterthought, the awakening evolution of individuals named Geld, Adalman,
That's insane!
Does this guy have no fear?!
He was fully prepared to pull one over on
Wait—no. If this got exposed, the one Guy would hold a grudge against would be me!
"Solution. No problem."
No, that was a MASSIVE problem!
I'm starting to find you genuinely terrifying right now!
This was exactly why the fearless were so dangerous.
"Huh? Five hundred thousand is enough? Then I don't need to keep destroying towns—I've got enough saved up already."
"Oh, really? Well, that's good."
At this point, all I could manage was a dry laugh.
This was scarier than running a scam on a yakuza boss.
If it came out, he'd be fully justified in destroying us, and I couldn't even complain.
Since I was a slime, I couldn't sweat, so my panic didn't show on my face. It was the first time in a while I was genuinely grateful to be a slime.
Guy was in high spirits, eating cake.
His third slice.
He seemed to really enjoy it.
The negotiation had concluded safely, so I'd have liked to send him on his way, but apparently one more person was coming and he had to wait.
Honestly, a nuisance.
Just moments ago, he'd opened a Gate from his base and brought Misery and Hilary here.
Since it was a place he'd visited before, creating a Gate was easy. I could do it too, so naturally Guy could as well.
He then handed over five hundred thousand souls, demanding I grant them to the two of them.
According to Raphael, they could be used without issue.
I was about to grant them right away when— "Wait. First, teach these two how to make that cake."
He said.
I told him to come buy it.
We stared each other down for a while, but he showed no signs of giving up.
I had no choice. It was against the rules, but I decided to teach him the recipe.
I wanted him gone, and it wasn't worth being stingy about.
I served the two of them cake as well.
Just tasting it wouldn't let them recreate it, I thought, but since I was teaching them the recipe, having tasted it first would help with recreation.
Unlike
The tea they'd served before had been excellent too.
The moment they took a bite of cake— "Wonderful!"
"As expected of Demon Lord Rimuru-sama!"
They praised me in unison.
If they could enjoy something as simple as cake this much, they really didn't need to play games with entire worlds at stake.
The world was full of far more wonders than that.
And just then,
"Th-this is terrible! Master went to Luminous's place!"
she screamed.
Just when one problem was resolved, another arose.
It seemed I wouldn't be getting any peace and quiet for a while.