…No, really!
I’m just saying, if we had something like the Night Butterfly on the ninety-fifth floor, it’d be useful for a lot of different situations.
I decided to offer this idea to the elder at once. “Elder, I think I know someplace that’d be able to accept you…”
When Rigurd realized I was speaking, he took a step back and listened. I don’t how he got trained to do it, but he could calmly handle just about any situation by this point. If I ever went off script during an event like this, he could keep up without any blank stares. I loved that.
“Ah! You do, Lord Rimuru?”
“Mm-hmm. If it’s about three hundred of you, we’d be able to fit you all in…”
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“…Thank you so much! I will inform my people of this the moment I return.”
“Great. I’ll get it all set up so it’s available for move-in when you’re ready. But do you mind if I ask a favor in return?”
“Of course not, my lord. If our powers can be of help to you, nothing could make us happier!”
The elven elder was even happier about it than I thought. It’d save them from having to wander the forest in search of a safe haven, which I’m sure came as a relief. It sounded like he was sending an envoy over right now to get people ready.
So now we had elves moving into our labyrinth.
I figured that was the end of the conversation, but one thing did concern me. The elder mentioned that elves had been leaving their enclave to work and not coming back. With a race as tightly knit as the elves, it seemed odd to me that any of them would abandon their homeland. Some elves even reportedly went out hunting and never returned, which disturbed me.
Elves could be very individualistic by nature, the elder said, so perhaps a passing whim drove them away from home. But then I remembered what I heard in Mjöllmile’s shop—the proposal from Viscount Cazac of Englesia. A place that dealt in elven slaves, wasn’t it?
Maybe it wasn’t a matter of these younger elves choosing not to go back. If my hunch about the criminal group Cazac was fronting turned out to be true… Well, hopefully it wasn’t, but if it was, that would be a big problem.
My dream of launching an elf nightclub was so close at hand. Seeing the elder off after we said our goodbyes, I thought that I’d better investigate this thoroughly.
Thus, I gave Soei behind me a Thought Communication message.
(Soei, I want you to investigate a man named Viscount Cazac in Blumund.)
(Yes, my lord!)
In a moment, he sent out a Replication of himself, beginning his work at once. That should be enough. He’d probably find something out before my audiences were over.
I’ll probably want to ask Mjöllmile what he knows about criminal slave merchants, too. If it turns out Cazac’s involved, there’d be no mercy for him. It was an affront to the deep love I had for elves—a love that drove me to open my very own elven nightclub. I wasn’t about to let anyone keep me from that dream.
The long, long audience period was finally in its last day. Once I was through this, I’d kick off the Founder’s Festival in three days.
No problems of note occurred after the elven contingent. It was going smooth as silk, and there were no major issues among the monsters staying in town. The little scuffle with Daggrull’s kids was the talk of the town in pretty short order, which probably kept anyone who wanted to show off their strength in line.
Geld had taken some time off, which let him return to Tempest a few days ago, and Diablo and Hakuro also arrived back the previous day.
“Ah, Sir Rimuru! You are as stately and dignified as always. My heart bursts with joy at being able to see you again!”
Diablo was buttering me up once more, punctuating the flattery with his usual ominous snickering. There was nothing “dignified” about a slime, so I reasoned that he probably needed glasses or something. I wanted a report from him, but that could wait—which disappointed him, but I needed to keep today free for an important discussion.
That was how major today’s visitor was to me. No letting my guard down around them, that’s for sure. As I saw it, it’d be my toughest audience yet. That was why I had my whole crew in attendance for today’s sessions.
Right now, this entourage was being welcomed into town by Benimaru, my right-hand man. (This should also say something about how crucial this was to me.) Already, on the other side of the door, I could sense a violent force approaching like a tidal wave. The rumors, I realized, were true.
The door opened, revealing a posse clad in full armor. These were the tengu, an independent force residing in the Khusha Mountains on the horizon of the Forest of Jura—outside my jurisdiction. While Benimaru had met with them once before, this was less of an audience and more of a summit between two factions.
Standing in front of this armored crew was a beautiful young woman. The tengu were humanoids known for their almost comically long noses, but this girl looked like any normal human. Tengu, bearing the same name as the figures of Japanese mythology, were apparently a hybrid species between angels and wolfmen—
Report. To be more accurate, they are not a hybrid. They are angels incarnated into the bodies of wolfmen.
Right—a type of incarnation. That.
Wolfmen were a type of beastman—a proud, isolated race who held an almost divine presence in people’s minds. Thus, calling the tengu long-nosed was often more a metaphor
