(Attendance… plz…)
….
The tense, half-lost atmosphere that had been hanging over Rimuru's town since Gazel's arrival was already gone.
King Gazel, including his four close companions and the one other knight who had shown up from somewhere off to the side, were now guests in Rimuru's village.
The evacuation had been called off, which was a relief, because the evacuation itself had caused a fair amount of chaos on the way out.
People were moving back through the streets in steady streams, heading to their homes, checking on belongings, rounding up children who had been mingled in with other children from other parts of the village during the rush. It was not a small amount of mess to undo.
None of it had been small-scale chaos.
Now all of that had turned into something resembling a party. Not the wild kind. Just people spread out comfortably, drinks in hand, leaning against each other and laughing over small conversations.
Rimuru had held a party like this once or twice before. Though to call them parties was generous. It was usually just everyone eating, talking outside.
That had been back before the village population had grown to what it was now, back when Rimuru had only just gained a body and taste buds capable of actually enjoying food and drink in the first place.
The last proper party of sort had been much earlier, when the Ogres had first arrived at the village under the weight of the Orc Lord invasion, and then again after the Orc Lord had been dealt with and everything had been resolved.
Gazel had sent the all of his knights back to the Armed Nation of Dwargon. Only his four close companions had stayed behind, plus the one who had arrived later.
That last one was a masked dwarven woman, though a passing glance at the shape of her ears could have easily mistaken her for an elf, or perhaps a half-elf.
Something about the way she was dressed and the mask on her face, suggested intelligence work in the Dwargon.
The gathering had settled inside wooden houses Rimuru had built for himself. It was a larger-than-average Japanese-style home, the kind he'd modeled after old samurai-era residences, with wide sliding doors that opened onto a small pond at the edge of the floor.
He most of the times come here when the pressure of running a growing town caught up with him and he needed to be alone and quiet for a while. Today it was neither alone nor quiet, but he didn't seem to mind.
Everyone had gathered here, drinking, and Reinhard was simply part of the group. He wasn't much of a drinker. Not because he couldn't drink. He just didn't especially enjoy it.
Though enjoyment was beside the point anyway, because no amount of alcohol, of any kind or strength, was going to have any effect on him. His body simply didn't process it in a way that would have any result. So he held the cup in his hand and didn't drink much of it, and nobody seemed to mind.
Rimuru was sitting next to him, and Rimuru, unlike Reinhard, genuinely enjoyed his drink.
That had taken some time to develop. Back before he'd taken Shizue's body and inherited taste buds along with it, food and drink had been neutral experiences for him, pure intake with no flavor attached.
Eating had been a simple absorption type which he didn't even need to in the first place even now if not for taste. But after acquiring a proper sense of taste, he had come to appreciate things like food and alcohol with the kind of enthusiasm only someone who had missed it for a long time could have, exactly like him.
Gazel and his knights sat across from them.
Reinhard and Rimuru had Shion, Benimaru, Hakurou, and Shuna on their side of the low table, though Shuna was on her feet most of the time, moving between the guests and the other goblinas who were helping serve.
"Oh, so that's why you came here with all those knights," Rimuru said, leaning back a little and letting his shoulders relax. "For a second there, I really thought you were coming to attack me. And J didn't even know why." He laughed at himself. "I'm honestly relieved it turned out to be you just checking in on who handled the Orc Lord and whether that person was going to be an ally."
That was certainly one of his reasons. Part of it was to see the one who defeated the Orc Lord with his own eyes. The other part was Rimuru himself. A town with this many high-born monsters in it, including his now former master and high orcs on top of everything else, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to call it a small nation with its own small army now. So he had to see it for himself.
Gazel suddenly with a slightly stiffened tone, as if he had been mildly insulted by something, "We're not some kind of barbarians who attack every newcomer we come across just because we don't recognize them."
Rimuru heard the stiffness and immediately backpedaled. "Oh, I didn't mean it like that. I meant..."
Gazel watched Rimuru fluster for about half a second, and then he laughed. "Hahaha. Relax, Rimuru. I was only joking."
"Haha, oh, really." Rimuru laughed along, but his laugh came out a little thinner than he would have liked.
It had not been a funny joke to him. It had been the kind of joke that felt like walking into another company's boardroom to pitch a major project that his entire livelihood depended on, and the CEO of that other company opening the meeting by saying they weren't going to work with him, and then after watching his face for a few seconds going just kidding.That kind of joke. Played on the wrong person at the wrong time.
Reinhard stepped in smoothly. "Well, to be fair, if someone were to show up uninvited, that could easily be interpreted as an attack. If a thousand knights turned up at a town's border without warning, it would be reasonable for the people in that town to assume the worst. You can certainly see what it would look like from the other side, if a kingdom with a small army marched straight into yours."
Gazel hummed and nodded slowly. "Fair. I can certainly see that. Well, I apologize again for the disturbance my knights and I caused. Next time I'll come alone with just my close guard only. Rimuru, I'll be reimbursing you for any damage and trouble caused, of course."
Rimuru waved a hand. "Haha N-No, that's really not necessary. I'm just glad it all got sorted out."
Gazel set his cup down and his gaze moved back to Reinhard. The warmth of the drinking company was still in his eyes, but something behind them had sharpened again.
"I have to say, I had never actually heard of you before today. With your skill and strength, your name should be somewhat wide spread. And yet, from what I could look up on my way here, you joined a B-rank adventurer party fairly recently. And before that, I couldn't find anything at all on you."
Reinhard nodded lightly. "Well Yes, I joined the adventurer's guild fairly recently. I started from a lower rank and then I joined Ellen's party. They should be back in a few days, actually."
Gazel studied him for a moment. "Well, I'm not the kind of man who pries into another man's past. So I'll leave it at that." He took another slow sip and continued. "I will say that I was genuinely shocked by your swordsmanship and your strength. I couldn't sense anything from you at all, not until the very last moment, and even then it was only a glimpse. The last time I felt something of that kind was when I was a child, training under Master Hakurou."
Ahh. When you've already been investigating him, heh. Rimuru thought dryly, and kept that particular observation safely inside his own head where it could not accidentally make its way across the table.
Hakurou, sitting a short distance away, smiled as his mind reached back to the day he had first come across a lost child in the forest and made the whim decision to teach him the sword.
"Hahaha. Well, those were certainly blissful days."
Gazel returned the smile. "Hahaha. Yes, they truly were. Master, since you're the instructor here, and since you even have a name now, I can only assume your swordsmanship and skill are far beyond what they once were when I was your student. Am I right?"
Hakurou inclined his head. "Yes, they are. Thanks to Lord Rimuru for granting me a name, and thanks to the ongoing sparring I've had with Reinhard and Benimaru, which allow me to improve further… I can feel myself growing stronger by the day. So yes, I'd say I've surpassed what I was before."
"By sparring am I to assume that even you weren't matched to him, Master?"
Hakurou laughed softly. "Huhuhu. Certainly."
Gazel's eyebrows lifted as he got his answer.
"I see," Gazel said slowly. "It seems I already have my answer, then. There's always a bigger fish in the world, after all."
Gazel finished his cup in a single steady motion that was almost ceremonial, and then he set it down on the low table with a small decisive sound and turned his attention back to Rimuru.
When he spoke this time, the loose relaxed tone was gone from his voice, replaced by something straighter. The voice of a king making an offer that had been waiting in his mouth for the right moment to leave it.
"I think now is a good moment to bring this up. Rimuru…"
"…Would you be interested in signing a treaty with my nation?"
A treaty with Rimuru. A treaty between the Armed Nation of Dwargon and Rimuru's town, offered now, in person, by the king himself.
What Gazel was effectively saying with the offer was that the nation he represented was recognizing the very town he had initially come here uncertain about.
The sheer number of high-born monsters in this village, including Gazel's own former master, plus the high orcs integrated into its workforce, was enough for him to want his own kingdom's safety pinned down as quickly as possible.
Which meant that whatever the terms of the treaty turned out to be, they would serve Gazel's goal of making certain his country was safe. By tying Dwargon and this town together in a treaty, he would turn a potential threat into an ally.
Rimuru was, to put it mildly, surprised. Along with most of the other people in the room. Even Gazel's own knights and the advisor with them looked slightly caught off guard, though none of them dared to say anything in the middle of it.
"Well," Rimuru said finally, his voice careful, "that's pretty sudden. I wasn't expecting that at all. But, you know, are you sure about this? Signing a treaty with us means acknowledging us as a proper nation. And I mean, I honestly hadn't thought about it that way. It's just a village."
"I think it's time," Gazel said. "It would be foolish of me to look at this place and keep pretending otherwise just to avoid something. And of course, this doesn't mean one of us gains the upper hand over the other, or that one side gets more and the other less. That isn't my plam, and it isn't a charitable arrangement either from my side. It would be a relationship of equals. So. What do you say?"
Rimuru scratched the back of his head. He honestly didn't know how to phrase his response. The whole thing had landed on him out of nowhere, and he wasn't sure what the right words were.
"Well, um, how do I say this. Technically, what you're telling me is to call my place… this village a proper nation in the Great Jura Forest. It's not that I'm against it or anything. But the thing is, putting a nation label on land that isn't strictly mine to label isn't really a good idea. I'm living here as a leader among other people, and when I first met Treyni, I got her permission to do what I'm doing in this part of the forest. So I think I'd have to ask her about that."
As if she had been waiting for her own name to be called, a familiar voice reached them.
It was Treyni. She materialised herself yet again in a flashy way. Though she wasn't inside the house. She was outside, and at some distance from it, and Reinhard already felt a quiet guilt over the fact that Treyni couldn't come inside because of him.
Her voice carried in clearly regardless of the distance.
"I have no objection. As long as the Alliance Leader of the Great Jura Forest has no opinion on it and is in agreement, I have no problem with the arrangement."
….
A/N: not too sure about this chapter kinda likeable, kinda not. Well whatever. Throw some stones and comments. I'm tired.
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