by Fuse
The storm magic granted me access to Death-Calling Wind, Dark Lightning, and Storm of Destruction. These were all incredibly powerful spells, not at all the sort you’d find in a grimoire down at the local library, so it was a nice bonus.
That rounded out the set, and to sum up, it meant Veldora was using me as a kind of backup. Which I didn’t mind, especially if it unlocked all of Veldora’s skills for me.
“A ‘soul corridor’?” Veldora asked. “So all my memories and experiences are gathered in your mind, regardless of where we are in time and space. As long as you do not cease to exist, I am immortal. If I am subjected to Unlimited Imprisonment, you can simply resummon me to spring me out. I was once nearly invincible, but now I see I’ve been granted eternal life as well.”
Wow. Really? Like, that totally seems like cheating. Although it assumes I’ll manage to keep myself alive going forward. Still, crazy. I could create these situations, like— Ha-ha! You thought you could take me? Well, check out this storm dragon I just happened to have bumping around in my pocket! Heh-heh-heh. I almost felt bad for my rivals. Talk about the ultimate ace in the hole.
With that soul-corridor connection, changes began to occur within Veldora. With his heart linked up to my soul, he had lost all his vulnerabilities. In a single moment, both his astral and spiritual bodies were regenerated, giving him new life in his original, complete form.
And then:
“Mnh?!”
He grunted, and then his Enhanced Replication began to mutate. It grew and grew and grew, coming close to seven feet tall. Now he was tall, well-built, supple, and quite muscular. His skin was a dark shade of brown, his hair blond, and his looks rugged and masculine. He was a fine figure of a man, one with just a few suggestions of my own facial features still in place.
It was kind of like if you took my external human form and made it deliberately manlier.
I couldn’t get this manly even if I tried faking it, so Veldora’s will must’ve been involved with this. Just like the battle-obsessed freak he was, he probably wished for something that looked strong and would hold up in a fight. Ah well. At least he didn’t grow into his full, gigantic dragon form.
This resurrection certainly seemed to fill him with joy, too. “Gahhh-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! I am fully restored!! I have obtained ultimate power! Anyone who defies me shall be slain!!”
…Um, hang on a sec. That’s weird, isn’t it? He’s starting to sound like a villain here. And where have I heard that line before?
—Wait. That’s gotta be a famous line from the boss character in a manga I used to love…
“Uh… Dude. Why do you know that line?”
“Gah-ha-ha-ha-ha! I was rather bored in there, so to pass the time, I analyzed your memories and read through the works I found inside.”
“Um, don’t you think your analysis work would’ve gone a hell of a lot faster if you didn’t waste your skills on stuff like that?!”
“What?!”
“…Huh?”
We stared at each other. It wasn’t exactly an affectionate moment. Veldora’s eyes swam as he considered what he had done.
“…Well, regardless, I have finally been released! My thanks to you, Rimuru!”
Way to change the subject, you bastard. I swore in my heart that I would pursue this issue in detail later on.
Still, just as I requested, Veldora was trying his best to rein in his aura. He was trying, but after having his full, vast, expansive strength restored to him, it was all gushing out like a tsunami. So I gave him a crash course in aura suppression—otherwise, I’d never be able to introduce him to anyone else.
“Not like that! Try to picture it building up in a little compartment in your body!”
“Mmh? Ah, speaking of which…”
Veldora closed his eyes, meditating over something for a moment. Then I noticed his aura shrink down a considerable amount.
“How is this?”
“Ohhh, much better.”
“Gahhhh-ha-ha-ha! I see my manga knowledge has paid off! It is as if all the knowledge of the world was contained inside those arcane volumes!”
—No it’s not, dumbass. What a goofball, trying to act out all those crazy stories. But…well, with a little practice, he oughtta be fine.
Report. The Food Chain process on the monsters who share in your soul hierarchy is complete. A large number of skills have been gifted to you, their master. Would you like me to sift through them and execute Ability Adjust?
Yes
No
Now the Harvest Festival had done its work on the townspeople.
There was no way I’d be able to fully harness the dozens, perhaps hundreds of skills streaming my way. Better to have someone rework them to be as simple and easy to use as possible. I mean, really, a skill’s something you may or may not be able to obtain after many years of diligently applying your latent talents. Now I had a zillion. It was just too much—a waste of power on someone like me.
So I thought YES—and the process of elimination wrapped up in an instant.
Report. Using the unique skill Unlimited Imprisonment as a base, the consolidation process has been completed. The unique skill Unlimited Imprisonment has evolved into the ultimate skill Uriel, Lord of Vows.
Wait. Waaaaaaait a second. Since when did I have Unlimited Imprisonment, too?! Because I think that’s kind of an important piece of information, but Raphael treated it as a total given, didn’t he…? I guess he’s just the kind of person to lose all interest in a solved problem, no matter how difficult it was.
So. Lord of Vows. Or loyalty, to put it another way. The collected prayers from those who vow fealty to me. All those prayers crystallized to form this new ultimate skill—and the moment I obtained it, I could feel a new strength. Strength, and an unbelievably reassuring peace of mind. And why wouldn’t I? This strength was proof positive of the bonds my friends and I shared.
But…hang on. Does this now mean I’m in possession of four ultimate skills? Those are some amazing toys, there. Nobody’s gonna mind if I get a little carried away with them, would they?
…Ah, but I shouldn’t let my guard down. Villains usually meet their tragic doom when they get all cocky like that. No self-proclaimed demon lord would leave themselves open like that. Whenever I do, things usually go awry, don’t they? We need to proceed carefully.
For now, let’s go over our new skills.
Understood. The forces of the ultimate skill Uriel, Lord of Vows are as follows:
I had Raphael spell them out for me, as always.
Apparently, this skill had merged some of my extra skills into it as well. The only intrinsic skills I had left at the end were Infinite Regeneration, Universal Detect, Universal Shapeshift, Lord’s Ambition, Enhanced Replication, and Universal Thread.
Meanwhile, the skill itself largely offered the following four features: Unlimited Imprisonment, Control Laws, Universal Barrier, and Dominate Space.
Unlimited Imprisonment: Entombs the target in a complex number of spatial dimensions.
Universal Barrier: Provides absolute defense with a multilayer barrier and the severing of space between both sides.
Control Laws: Black fire and thunder. Magical control. Control of heat quantities and inertia. The ability to freely store and remove heat from the Stomach.
Dominate Space: A movement ability, allowing the user to freely switch between spaces for which they are aware of the coordinates.
So, kind of the culmination of a lot of skills I had gathered so far.
I could trigger Unlimited Imprisonment any time I wanted to. It was equal to the prison Veldora had been trapped in, making anyone caught inside impossible to retrieve, by and large. Universal Barrier automatically protected my body—fully handled by Raphael—without my having to think about it.
Control Laws seemed like it’d let me engineer all kinds of phenomena through the control of magicules. The description was a lot of Greek to me, really, but for now I could have Raphael fig
ure it out if I wanted something.
Dominate Space, meanwhile, was about as close to instant teleportation as you could get. As long as I could perceive something with Universal Detect, I could flick myself right over there, no need to build a hole in space or anything. This included any place I had visited before, although that required a little time delay.
Frankly, the powers of Uriel were mind-boggling. All the offense from before, plus movement, defense, and banishment—all massively powered up. I felt safe in summarizing it that way.
Like, I’m invincible now, aren’t I—? No, no, I just told myself I’d refrain from such nonsense. No getting carried away.
As I pored over my new skills, Veldora seemed to have controlling his aura pretty well mastered, figuring out the traits of Faust, Lord of Investigation along the way. He keeps on spouting off such incredible BS that I forgot, but Veldora’s actually a lot smarter than I am.
This Faust thing was pretty amazing, too. It encompassed five skills—Mind Accelerate, Analyze and Assess, All of Creation, Control Probability, and Investigate Truth—and if you asked me to explain how it worked, I’d be stumped. A couple of those skills I had never heard of before, but sadly, Food Chain wasn’t in the cards for him. No need to be greedy, though. I doubted he’d be able to fully use it anyway.
So our preparations were complete. Now, for the first time in several centuries, Veldora would be unleashed on the outside world.
Upon leaving the cave with him, I found everyone waiting for us at the entrance—and really, we were just about to have chaos on our hands. A large number of people were assembled around the cave, and they were (to say the least) unruly.
Some of them had already realized the legendary Storm Dragon was back to life, with one contingent wanting to march inside to save me and the other refusing to budge until I gave them orders. The arguments between them had grown heated in my absence, even as Benimaru stood silently with arms crossed.
“But I tell you, if Sir Rimuru is gone, then we’ve got no way to rescue Carillon, our lord. We gotta get him outta there, no matter the cost!”
“How many times do I have to repeat myself? Sir Rimuru ventured into the cave of his own volition. Clearly he has some motivation for this, and it is not for us to interfere with that.”
“But it’s been three days! If we don’t do something—”
“All right, you mewling vermin! Will you be quiet for me, or would you like to be crushed instead?”
“What’d you say?!”
“Enough, Diablo!” Benimaru finally thundered. “You are not mediating over this conflict at all! And it’s all right, Sufia. There is no doubt that Sir Rimuru is just fine. If he is in any danger, we will immediately take action. But if Veldora, guardian deity of the Forest of Jura, has come back to life, we certainly cannot afford to make any ill-advised moves.”
He distractedly scratched his head. I guess things were a lot worse than I pictured. Wow, three whole days? Between freeing Veldora and working out my skills, I must’ve lost all sense of time.
By the looks of things, the lycanthropes wanted to plunge into the cave and Diablo was trying to stop them. My demon was being backed up by Treyni and the other dryad sisters, along with Jura’s other native residents, although Diablo himself was trying to act as a neutral arbitrator.
Now it was time to delve in myself. This whole quarrel was my and Veldora’s fault anyway, so…
“Hey, guys. Sorry if I made you all worry.”
“““Sir Rimuru!!”””
This led to yet more gasps and shouts as Rigurd sprinted up to me.
“Ahhh, Sir Rimuru! You’re safe! We were so worried! We received word from the Sealed Cave that Veldora the Storm Dragon’s presence revived itself without warning. Are you all right? We heard you had ventured into the cave.”
I gave the concerned-looking Rigurd a smile and a nod to show I was fine.
“Alvis, Sufia, Phobio, and all the other lycanthropes—I guess I put a lot of undue concern on you. Sorry. I should’ve explained myself better.”
“N-no, Sir Rimuru. As long as you’re safe, it’s fine.”
“I was so worried, but…indeed, it is fine.”
“So what happened to the Storm Dragon?”
The Three Lycanthropeers seemed greatly relieved. Given how I was the key to rescuing Carillon, I’m sure my absence must’ve freaked them out mightily. Veldora, meanwhile, must not have liked the “Sir” being omitted from his epithet, because he scowled back at them. I grinned, patted his shoulder, and told him to calm down before I addressed the crowd.
“That is exactly what I came here to show you all. But before that, allow me to introduce—”
I then pushed Veldora, the handsome young man standing next to me, toward the forefront.
“This is li’l old Veldora in the flesh! He’s kinda shy, but make nice with him, all right?”
The entire region of town fell into silence. Everyone’s eyes landed on Veldora, nobody daring to say a word. In the midst of this:
“Wait a moment! Enough of that nonsense! I am not in the least bit shy—I just had so few people reach my domain while they were still breathing, up to now.”
It was delivered in a peeved, dissatisfied voice, but it was more than enough to plunge the scene right back into chaos.
………
……
…
The dryads were the first to recover. They all kneeled before Veldora, Treyni included, and bowed their heads.
“O Sir Veldora, guardian of the forest, how it fills us with joy from the heart to see you alive and well again!”
“Gahhh-ha-ha-ha! The dryads, eh? Haven’t seen you in ages. Well done managing my forest for me!”
“Oh, we hardly deserve your praise. It is still nowhere near enough of a task to repay the favor you showed us, taking us in after we were separated from our Spirit Queen.”
“Ah, don’t worry about it. So I guess you and Rimuru are working together? I intend to be just as obliged to him going forward, so keep up the good work!”
Whoa. What’s he mean, “just as obliged”? We’re gonna have a talk about that later on, to be sure. I had a feeling I’d be taking care of a lazy, useless bum unless I stepped up and did something about it.
“Y-yes. Certainly. But—”
“Umm, if I may,” piped up Doreth, youngest of the dryads, recovering from her paralysis just in time to take the words from Treyni’s mouth. “Sir Veldora, what kind of relationship do you have with Sir Rimuru?”
I could tell everyone was straining their ears to hear the answer. They were intensely curious about it. I could practically hear them holding their breath.
“Ah, that? Eh-heh-heh. You’d like to know?”
Don’t give me that “eh-heh-heh” crap, man. What’s the point of acting all high and mighty here?
“Yes! By all means!”
Everyone else nodded. It served only to make Veldora smile triumphantly. You see? You guys all spoiled this dragon for so long that he thinks he can get away with well near anything.
“We…are friends!!”
Oh please. Stop. Now you’re embarrassing me, too. I wanted to die of shame at the way he proudly bellowed it out, but the monsters gathered before us were now more frenzied than ever.
“My goodness! First Lady Milim and now Sir Veldora?!”
“When did he ever do that…?”
“Ohhh, yeah, ol’ Rimuru’s always been that way! Really cool!”
“Yeah, that’s sure the slime I know. I’ve come to expect damn near anything from him, really…”
The murmuring continued for a few more moments.
“So… Er, why are you taking that form, Sir Veldora?”
“Oh, this? My friend Rimuru prepared it for me. Over the past three days, he has helped me learn how to restrain my aura so I can converse with all of you without any adverse effects. What do you think? Don’t you agree this is better as well?”
“I do.” Tr
eyni sighed, overcome with emotion. “I really do.”
“This will be a great help to all of us, truly.”
“You look so amazing, Sir Veldora!!”
“Yes! Yes, I do, don’t I? Gahhh-ha-ha-ha!”
The other dryad sisters gave Veldora just the kind of praise he craved. Well, if he’s happy, I’m not gonna rain on his parade.
“Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh. Well done, Sir Rimuru. You trained him to hold back that all-powerful aura of his? How fascinating…”
“You said it, Diablo. But more than that, he’s friends with Sir Veldora? That’s what I’m more surprised about.”
“Perhaps,” Rigurd said, “but looking back, it makes sense. Sir Rimuru first showed himself in our village just when Sir Veldora himself disappeared.”
“Indeed, I had always wondered if the timing of the two events was more than a coincidence.”
“Yeah, I kinda kept it a secret from you guys. I thought at the time it’d take a century or so to free Veldora, and if word got out, there was no telling who’d take that as a signal to attack us.”
“Ah, I see…”
My explanation seemed convincing enough to them—and in the end, Veldora became a member of our town far more easily than I’d guessed.
Just then, Soei appeared before me via Spatial Motion—I guess that was my gift to him.
“Sir Rimuru, I have returned to report on Clayman’s activity…”
Before he could continue, he realized that he was surrounded by the Three Lycanthropeers and nearly every VIP in the land of Tempest.
“…Did something happen, my lord?” he asked, perhaps hesitant to divulge his report in front of this massive audience. Yeah, something sure did happen, didn’t it?
“Oh, nothing too serious. Your report’s the most important thing for now. Here, you three listen in, too—”
“Allow us to, if you could.”
“Yeah, me too!”
“No way we aren’t staying involved now.”