Just as before, Traya and Doreth were crying their eyes out over her.
Treyni just nodded in response. I wasn’t sure who they were talking about at this point. “Elegant” was one of the last words I’d ever use to describe her.
“Did you hear that?” Ramiris huffed, tossing her head. “Hey—hey, did you hear that? Better not look down on me any longer, you hear?”
Man, shut up. Now she was flying around the room, lording it over us as best she could with her size. Ah well. Everybody likes a compliment. But judging by this, the answer to the dryads’ question seemed pretty clear.
“Well, Ramiris? I think all the treants want to serve you, too, not just these two.”
“Huh? But…”
Ramiris gave me a hesitant look. I suppose she still felt like a freeloader in my city. So I threw her a life preserver.
“How about we have them move into your labyrinth? We moved the beastmen’s camp without breaking a sweat, so could it be much harder to move the treant colony?”
Or did the distance involved create an issue? I felt like she said she could build a corridor into the maze from anywhere she wanted…
“Are you sure?” She beamed, nodding at me. “In that case, I’ll head out as soon as tomorrow! Expanding this labyrinth was a snap when I borrowed some power from my master, and I feel like I’ve gained some power, too. It’d be kind of fun to make some of the empty floors into a jungle section!”
That part about borrowing power from Veldora concerned me a little, but whatever.
“But as creatures who live in the Forest of Jura, shouldn’t they be placed under Sir Rimuru’s rule?” Treyni pointed out.
She must have been worried about that. But there was eager anticipation written all over her face. Clearly she would love to live with her sisters—and like I’ve said before, I had no reason to deny them. Ramiris did rule the labyrinth, a unique space with her living quarters and a zone left to my management. For the parts under her control, perhaps I should recognize them as extraterritorial from Tempest.
I explained this to them, showing how I wouldn’t question their moving here. Her rule over the labyrinth was unstoppable, and besides, it’d be nice for them to be reunited with their original master.
“We, the treants and dryads, wish to reposition ourselves under the blessed protection of Lady Ramiris.”
“We know it is selfish of us, but would we be able to receive permission for this?”
They’d have it, of course.
The treant colony would be placed on Floor 95, the level on which the beastmen camp was located. It was the largest floor in land area, a circle with a radius a bit over three miles, so we had space to work with. I was intending to build the rest stop on that floor, too, so this worked out well for that, too. People talk about how refreshing a walk in the woods is, and I didn’t want our resting post to be this depressing, clinical thing.
Moving day went pretty fast. It was more of a moving moment, really. Ramiris just opened a door to the labyrinth at the treants’ location, then moved them right inside. The actual process took a few hours, but all it took was opening a door next to each treant, so it was pretty straightforward.
Now Ramiris had an even greater domain to rule over, and I had a more stable labyrinth to work with. Managing the magicules was much easier now, to say nothing of the air conditioning, and the treants couldn’t have asked for anything more. Thanks to the high levels of magic concentration in the air, they were all brimming with energy.
None of the beastmen living in their temporary quarters had any complaints, either. Treants are generally pretty chill, usually asleep and looking like plain old trees—and besides, the beastmen would be going back to the Beast Kingdom sooner or later, so they didn’t mind having some neighbors for the time being. If anything, they welcomed them, since it made the whole floor more comfortable to live in.
They had also extracted a promise from the dryads to help maintain the labyrinth—or really, the dryads volunteered to help. “We’ve had a paradise made for us, so that much would be simple,” Treyni said. Her sisters, and the other dryads, all nodded their agreement.
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With that, we had a small forest village in the labyrinth, along with some very unexpected helpers.
Floor 95, being a multiple of five, was a safe zone. Since we had a bunch of extra floors anyway, I decided to use Floors 91 through 94 as a storage site, a greenhouse for gardens, and a processing facility. To be more specific, Floor 91 would contain storage for metal ore; Floor 92, a plant for producing magisteel; Floor 93, a garden; and Floor 94, another facility for producing honey. There was also free passage all the way to Floor 95, which made movement easy, and the save point in the center of 95 included doors back to other floors above and a single, foreboding stairway going down.
This was a pretty convenient setup, one that cheerfully ignored all the laws of physics but still seemed to work just fine.
By the way, defeating the boss at Floor 90 granted you access to stairs down to Floor 95—if you somehow made it this far, I was happy to give you a bit of a shortcut. Your final, hellish challenge would begin on Floor 96, and before journeying onward, you’d naturally want to rest up and inspect all your equipment. I made sure to put up a door before the stairway down, along with a notice explaining the dangers below, and I also planned to provide an inn and weapon/armor shop near the door.
This inn would be connected to the other safe zones in the labyrinth. The doors were all connected, which helped with this setup a lot. The shop, meanwhile, could offer valuable equipment
