(Attendance… plz…)
….
Reinhard found Rimuru at the center of town, right where Souei told them.
The little slime sat perched on a wooden post near the main road, his round body angled upward, completely still.
He wasn't looking at the sky the way a person would. With magic sense doing the real work, he didn't need to look at anything at all.
But there was something in the way his body tilted, the tension in that small blue frame, that told Reinhard everything he needed to know before a single word was spoken.
Something was coming.
Benimaru walked half a step behind him, dressed in the same casual clothes as Reinhard. Neither of them had armored up. There hadn't been time for that, and honestly it wasn't like he previously had any armor or equipment. His reid sword was at his hip though.
Rimuru's body shifted as they approached. In his slime form you couldn't really tell where he was looking since he didn't have eyes. But Reinhard noticed it. The subtle rotation of his body, the way his attention had locked onto him for a few seconds too long.
"Is there something on my face?" Reinhard asked, tilting his head slightly.
Rimuru's body jiggled once, the slime equivalent of shaking his head. "Nope. Nothing. Just glad you two are here." He paused, and his voice dropped a little lower. "We've probably got a big enough problem on our hands that if a fight breaks out, there could be a lot of casualties."
Reinhard let that settle for a second. He looked toward the sky in the direction Rimuru had been facing.
"So they're hostile?"
"I don't know yet." Rimuru shook his body again, not to say no but more like he didn't have a real answer to give. "They'll be here in a few or so minutes. I already told Shion to let everyone know about evacuation just in case this goes bad."
Benimaru stepped up beside Reinhard now. His expression was calm but his eyes were sharp. "How many?"
Rimuru let out what sounded like a small sigh. "Somewhere around a thousand. Heavy cavalry, mounted knights. Their individual rank is around A… on the higher side."
That number sat in the air for a moment.
Benimaru nodded slowly. A thousand wasn't much compared to what they'd faced during the orc invasion.
Tens of thousands of orcs pouring through the forest like a living flood, that was a different kind of fear. A thousand cavalry didn't carry the same weight in number scale. But every single one of them being A-rank individually, that was something else entirely. That wasn't a mob, but a trained army of elites.
Still, Benimaru found it hard to feel genuinely afraid of it considering what he had seen or felt.
He'd stood face to face with that demoness. Blanc or White as she had given the name to Reinhard.
He'd felt her presence settle over him like the entire sky had decided to come down and sit on his shoulders.
He had known at that moment, without any room for pride or denial, that the gap between himself and something like her wasn't a gap at all.
It was more like comparing a child learning to stand with someone who could shatter mountains. He wasn't even in the same race.
And Reinhard had fought her. Not just fought her, but won. Destroyed her physical body and killed her. She'd confirmed it herself, that Reinhard was stronger than her at that time and before.
Knowing both of those things and standing between them, Benimaru had long since made peace with his own position. He wasn't weak. He was just nowhere near them. Two completely separate truths.
His grip tightened around his sword. "Your orders, Lord Rimuru?"
Rimuru fidgeted. His body wobbled slightly, and Reinhard could tell he didn't have a clean answer ready.
"My orders?" He let out a breath, which was strange coming from a slime but somehow he managed it.
"Well, we don't know who they are yet or like what they want. I don't even know if they're here to fight or if they came for something else entirely. That's kind of the problem. People really should let you know before showing up uninvited damn it."
Reinhard smiled faintly. "I think it'll be alright. And for the worst case, you already told Shion to start the evacuation, so that was a smart move. Better to prepare for the worst than focus on fighting first and end up with people caught in the middle."
Rimuru appreciated that. Hearing Reinhard say it so plainly helped settle his nerves more than he wanted to admit.
He'd already asked Great Sage for a calculation.
The best-case scenario without Reinhard was to run, and even that only had about a seventy to eighty percent success rate.
Not exactly comfortable numbers. He'd tried to get a reading that included Reinhard's combat power in the equation but that was where things always come down to blank. Great Sage couldn't analyze him.
Every attempt came back as an error. Whatever Reinhard was or his skills like, Great Sage's just couldn't analyse him.
But that didn't mean the Great Sage was completely in the dark. It had witnessed what Reinhard could do. It had heard Benimaru saying Reinhard cut down ten thousand orcs with a single swing.
It had watched him overpower the great elemental spirit Ifrit without breaking a sweat. Based on those recorded feats alone, Great Sage had offered a rough conclusion: if Reinhard fought seriously, their chances of winning were extremely high.
And looking at Reinhard's face right now, there wasn't a trace of concern on it. That alone was its own kind of answer.
"Me too," Rimuru said quietly. "I don't want to fight if we can avoid it. But if something worse happens and they..."
"Lord Rimuru!"
A voice from side cut him off. All three of them turned at once.
Kaijin came running up the road, his broad frame moving with an urgency that didn't match his usual steady pace. He was breathing hard by the time he reached them, and his face was tight with something between worry and recognition.
"I heard that there are winged horses coming here?"
Rimuru nodded. "Yeah."
Kaijin's expression shifted. He looked up toward the sky but he didn't see anytging, then back at Rimuru. "I don't know if it's possible, or even true, but those could be the top-secret force from Dwargon. The ones that operate directly under the king himself. It's only a rumor, but..."
Rimuru blinked. "Huh? I thought Dwargon's military was all heavy infantry and magic corps. And weren't you ex-military yourself? What kind of top-secret unit is so top-secret that even you only heard of it as a rumor?"
Kaijin scratched the back of his neck. "I was in the military, yeah. But that doesn't mean I was high up. We were young. You can't exactly boss around people who have centuries more experience than you. And the rumors only came from those retired old-timers who'd let things slip after a few too many drinks."
Benimaru looked at Kaijin with his arms crossed. "If that's true, then could the Dwargon King be among them?"
"Like I said, it's just a rumor, and I have no way of confirming it." Kaijin hesitated for a second. "But on the off chance, yes. King Gazel himself could be among them."
Reinhard tilted his head slightly, considering that. "If a king is among them, then what reason would he have to come all the way here with that many soldiers? Even if you factor in security concerns, a king doesn't need a thousand-man escort just for a visit. Is there something different about this here?"
"No, you're right," Rimuru said. "Unless the king is scared for his life or something." He paused, and then his voice shifted to something more focused. "Well, it seems like they're almost here. Let's head to the entrance. Kaijin, come with us. If King Gazel really is with them, you could be useful." He tilted slightly.
"Souei."
A figure appeared behind Rimuru without a sound. "Yes."
"Please help with the evacuation and make sure there aren't any problems. If things turn into a fight, focus on getting people out first. Protect the children and civilians before anything else."
Souei met Benimaru's eyes for a brief moment, and something unspoken passed between them. Then he vanished.
…
They stood at the entrance of the town.
Reinhard could see them long before anyone else. His eyes didn't need magic sense or any conscious effort. One of his blessings, something like a far-sight ability, worked passively.
The winged horses were still kilometers out and he could already make out the riders before it, the formation, the gleam of their armor catching the afternoon light.
Then they came into everyone else's view too.
Hundreds of Pegasus Knights in tight formation, their mounts cutting through the sky with powerful wingbeats that made the trees below sway. The sight alone was enough to make the air feel heavier.
But they didn't land at the entrance.
Instead, the entire formation swept past them, flying over the town itself, not deep enough to reach the residential areas but far enough in to make a point.
Then they began to circle. Once, twice, three times, looping around Reinhard and the others who stood at the entrance in wide controlled arcs.
Their eyes were clearly on the group below, scanning, measuring, testing for something.
Reinhard could feel the gazes of their attention but didn't move. He just stood there and watched them go around.
By the eighth loop, they finally changed direction. The entire formation pulled away and headed toward the open field on the eastern side, their path deliberately clear and their intent obvious.
Follow us.
No words or some kind of messenger. As if the act of circling alone was supposed to be both greeting and command.
Reinhard watched them pull away and let out a quiet breath through his nose. "They're heading toward the open field in that direction."
Rimuru sat in Reinhard's arms in his slime form, his body jiggling slightly as he processed the whole display. "I think they're telling us to follow them."
Benimaru snorted. "We would've gone there even if they didn't."
Reinhard glanced at the retreating formation one more time. Honestly they looked like circus horses with better armor. All that looping and circling, the neat formations and the dramatic wingbeats. It was like a show that happens in circus shows.
…
Since the knights hadn't launched an immediate attack, it was clear their intentions weren't purely hostile. The group approached the open field slowly, feeling no need to rush to meet an uninvited army.
It was also a tactical decision on Rimuru's part: walk as slowly as possible to give Souei and the others more time to evacuate the civilians.
When they finally reached the open field, the Pegasus Knights were lined up in neat, disciplined rows on either side, creating a clear path down the middle. And standing at the end of that path was King Gazel Dwargo himself.
He was flanked by his knights, a clear show of dominance through superior numbers. Counting the King, the three powerful individuals standing directly behind him (an old woman and two men), and the five hundred knights on horseback, the message was clear: We are stronger than you.
Kaijin moved first.
He stepped ahead of Rimuru and Reinhard, walked forward until he was a few paces from Gazel, then dropped to one knee and bowed his head. "Well, well, Your Majesty. It's been quite a long time, and this is one impressive showing. May I ask what brings you all the way out here?"
Gazel looked down at him and something in his face relaxed, just barely. "A pleasure seeing you again, Kaijin." Then his gaze lifted past the kneeling blacksmith and settled on Reinhard, who was still holding Rimuru. "And you too, slime." His eyes moved to Reinhard directly. "And the adventurer name Reinhard. Though I believe this is our first meeting."
Reinhard didn't miss it.
Neither did Benimaru. The ogre's jaw tightened and his hand shifted toward his sword. Calling Rimuru by his race name like that, in front of his own people, in the his own territory. It wasn't an accident.
Gazel was a king. He knew how words worked. And whether it was a test or genuine dismissal, it was still disrespect toward the person who had given Benimaru and everyone else here a home and a future.
Even Kaijin's shoulders stiffened where he knelt.
Reinhard didn't react right away. He stood there with Rimuru resting in the crook of his arm, his posture relaxed but straight, the kind of stillness that didn't look forced. He let the silence sit for just a moment longer than was comfortable, his eyes resting on Gazel.
Then he tilted his head forward in a small bow. "It's a pleasure to meet the King of Dwargon in person. And for you to know of me at all, I'm honored." He paused. "Though I'd ask that you extend the same courtesy to Rimuru when you speak. Calling him by his race name rather than his name isn't quite fitting for someone of your standing."
Gazel looked at Reinhard for a long moment. Whatever he'd expected the adventurer to say, it clearly wasn't that.
Before the silence could stretch further, Rimuru hopped down from Reinhard's arm. He landed on the grass with a soft bounce and angled his body toward Gazel in what he hoped looked like a bow, though in slime form it was honestly impossible to tell. "King Gazel, it's nice to meet you again. It's a..."
Gazel held up one hand. "You can drop the pleasantries. I'm not here as a king exactly. Think of me more as a private citizen." He paused and something that might have been dry humor flickered across his face. "At least on paper. Otherwise, I'd hardly be allowed out of my own bedroom, let alone coming all the way out here."
Rimuru almost laughed. A private citizen with a thousand bodyguards, huh. He would've cracked a joke about it if the situation were lighter.
"Then, sir, am I allowed to speak as I wish?"
"By all means," Gazel said. "This is no place for customs and pleasantries to begin with."
Rimuru took that as his cue. He focused inward and felt the shift happen, his body stretching and reshaping until he stood in his human form though it took no more than a moment.
Taller now, with hair falling just past his jaw and golden eyes that caught the light. He rolled his shoulders once, settling into the shape, then looked at Gazel directly.
"Well then, let me introduce myself properly. My name is Rimuru Tempest. I know my race is slime, but I'd really appreciate it if you didn't call me that and just used my name instead." He gestured vaguely at himself. "This isn't my real form either, but I figure it's probably easier for you to have a conversation with someone who has a face."
"It transformed?!" The old woman behind Gazel blurted it out before she could stop herself. Her eyes had gone wide, and the two men beside her were leaning forward with open curiosity.
"Silence!" Gazel's voice cracked through the air like a whip.
They went quiet instantly. Whatever questions were burning behind their eyes, they swallowed them whole.
Gazel turned his attention back to Rimuru, and when he spoke again his tone had shifted. Still firm, still measured, but with a directness that cut past all the posturing.
"I'll state my reason for coming here." He met Rimuru's eyes. "It is none other than to meet you, Rimuru. A leader with numerous highborn monsters directly under him." His gaze flicked to Benimaru for a moment. "Like that one." Then back to Rimuru. "And secondly, to meet the one who supposedly stopped the Orc Lord. Or so I've heard." Something in his expression sharpened. "And confirmed for myself."
….
A/N: cough… cough!!!
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