by Fuse
The one in front was a handsome young man with a burning blaze of crimson hair. His eyes were just as bright-red, and they were fixed squarely upon me, never wavering. Who’s this? I thought. But another look confirmed it—it was Benimaru, the ogre referred to as “young master” by his cohorts.
Two horns, smoother and more beautiful than obsidian, poked out from his crimson locks. They used to be thicker than elephant tusks, but now they were honed, polished, and as thin and beautiful as a work of art. The Benimaru I knew was a hulking figure, but this guy was maybe just under six feet tall, and his body was taut and well-defined.
The amount of energy I felt from him, however, made him seem like a completely different person from before. He wasn’t quite as strong as Ifrit, for example, but that was the first comparison that came to mind. He might be past A rank now.
How the hell did naming someone unlock this much force? was my honest reaction.
Next to him was a fetching young woman who was almost hidden in Benimaru’s shadow. Shuna, I supposed. She was already sweet-looking, and that had evolved massively along with everything else. Like, what the hell? This was a total princess now, man. A completely different level from before. Her long hair, just a touch pink now, cascaded across her head to the ponytail below. She had two horns of white porcelain, lightly shaded skin, and lips the shade of a cherry blossom in spring. Her crimson eyes seemed a little glossy as she looked at me.
Dude, what a babe!! No 2-D anime girl could compare. She was smaller, around five feet, and the aura she projected made you instinctively want to protect her.
Hakuro, the wizened old ogre, seemed far younger now. He had looked about ready to keel over at any moment before, but now it appeared he was maybe just beginning to approach his golden years. His posture is perfect, and at least some of the physical strength he had lost with age has returned, I thought. Even in a straight-on test of strength, he was no longer someone to trifle with.
His eyes were still black, his hair still a shocking shade of white, but now those eyes were sharper. His long hair was tied back, and he had a pair of small horns on both sides of his forehead. He looked like a warrior, and if he took me on now, I wouldn’t exactly like my chances.
Shion, the other ogress, had clearly paid close attention to her hair. It was well washed and combed, nice and straight instead of flipping out in the back like earlier. It had a fetching sheen of purple, a nice match for her ponytail.
She had a single horn, that obsidian-black shade again, and it naturally parted her hair. Her purple eyes, like the others’, were firm upon me. Her skin was nearly white, her lips bright red. She didn’t look as wild as before—maybe a little makeup?—and that, combined with being about five and a half feet, made her look pretty damn amazing.
The whole package was sleek as a supermodel, but she had one extremely unique part—a part that whatever masculinity I had left all but forced my eyes to wander toward, I suppose. I was in slime form, at least, so she couldn’t see where I was looking. Which was good. I bet she’d look kick-ass in a business suit. Honestly, I wish she could be my secretary. Such were the thoughts of my soul.
Soei was about the same age as Benimaru, with a complexion on the darker side and lips a slightly bluish shade of black. The single white horn on his forehead contrasted well against it, and his navy-blue eyes exuded a strong force of will. He had handsomeness to him, something Benimaru most certainly did not, and he was about the same height, to boot.
How were all these people getting so attractive all of a sudden? And not just attractive but, like, in the completely opposite direction of what they were before. A total one-eighty. The sheer perfection irked me a little, which I suppose is only human.
Kurobe was in the prime of his life. To put it nicely, he was rugged; in a not so nice way, he was hairy. It made him stand out a bit among the beauty pageant contestants surrounding him.
His hair and eyes were black, his skin a dark shade of brown. He had two white horns, noticeable without being too huge on his forehead, and in a way, the averageness of his looks made me feel a kind of kinship with him. It was a relief, in a way, his presence in the crowd. Between that and his apparent age, I had a feeling we’d get along pretty well.
So that was the six, and it wasn’t just their looks that had changed.
Benimaru and his friends had evolved from ogres to ogre mages, a natural progression like the one from goblins to hobgobs. It made for a showier-looking creature, but if anything, their strength received the biggest upgrade. I’d say they were all past A rank now. At first I thought it might be a mistake, but no. All of them. No wonder they robbed me of all my magic.
It was starting to look like the stronger the monster I gave a name to, the more magic it required to engineer the upgrade. Evolving monsters required a commensurate amount of magicules, a valuable lesson I had to learn the hard way. If I had screwed that up, I could’ve dried up my magic entirely, which would’ve been beyond bad. I had depleted it to the point where I was basically catatonic, after all. I’d better try to take it nice and slow with this kind of thing from now on.
I had done a pretty good job evolving six of these guys. I was proud of that. But I had my regrets.
They had really better not turn traitor on me, for one…
And speak of the devil, Benimaru goes, “Sir Rimuru, we have a request! Please, we beg of you to accept our solemn oath of fealty!”
Great. Now I felt dumb for even thinking about betrayal.
“Hmm? Geez, you don’t have to get all formal about it. Just because you’re my mercenaries doesn’t mean I want you groveling at my feet.”
“It is not that, my lord. We wish to serve you as your loyal retainers!”
What?
I told them they were free to go once this little skirmish was wrapped up, but I guess Benimaru and his people had other plans. They must have talked this out among themselves in advance.
“““Please, give us your benevolent aid!!””” they now intoned in unison.
I had no reason to say no. But were they really okay with nothing but some meals and floor space in a cabin? That bothered me, but if that was what they wanted, I might as well believe in them.
Thus, the village’s population grew by six in a single day. I decided to keep to myself that I honestly feared their strength.
Taking another good look, I realized exactly how much they all had changed. They had shrunk a decent amount, which made their clothing flap loosely about, but they still had the dignity to wear it well. Beauty’s a damn helpful thing to have at times like these. I didn’t think Kurobe could pull it off, but I guess he borrowed an outfit from Kaijin, and it worked on him. If not for the horns, I’d almost mistake him for a dwarf.
Hakuro was the only one who hadn’t physically changed that much. His outfit still fit him normally.
Shion, on the other hand, was a bit precarious, her now much ampler chest threatening to spill out. Eep. Better do something about that. Garm should be informed of this at once, I thought as I kept sneaking secret peeks at her bosom.
Soei’s chest plate was still in pieces, too. I had forgotten about smashing that up, but, hey, there’s an easy way to make up for it. It was time for all the ogre mages to get new clothing and equipment. I had promised to take care of their basics, and I didn’t want them to fight with old, banged-up crap.
So I took them all to Garm’s cabin.
“Hey, boss!” he greeted me, smiling as he stopped working. “Those the new ogre friends we’ve got? You sure about that? ’Cause they sure don’t look like ogres to me, but…”
He looked pretty surprised, his eyes right on Shion’s chest.
“Yeah, well, I named ’em all, so they aren’t exactly ogres any longer. Ogre mages, is the term for ’em now, I think.”
“Ogre mages?! That’s a high-level race, isn’t it? Born only on extremely rare occasions among the ogres…”
“Is it? Well, there you have it, I guess. You thi
nk you could make some clothing and armor for them?”
“Oh. Yeah, sure thing.”
Garm still seemed dubious but refrained from commenting further as he brought the ogres inside. I was sure he’d be measuring them all shortly. Hakuro was good to go as is, and Kurobe apparently borrowed a few days’ worth of outfits from Kaijin. Simple work clothes, really, but Kurobe seemed happy enough with them.
And that reminded me: Why did their clothing look so Japanese?
“Hey,” I asked Hakuro, “your weapons are pretty unusual, aren’t they?”
As he put it, around four hundred years ago, a group of armored warriors came to the ogres’ homeland, heavily wounded and seemingly lost in the forest. The ogres were a warfaring bunch by that point, more akin to monsters than they are now, but even then, they blanched at attacking the defenseless. They were a high-level race, not very preoccupied about food, so they took care of them.
The warriors, thankful for this, instructed the ogres in battle techniques and gifted their armor to them. One among them knew how to forge these katana-style weapons, and after a long trial-and-error process, they succeeded in producing large numbers.
“One of the warriors they trained was my own grandfather,” Hakuro said proudly, “and he made well sure to teach me every skill he had.”
“Yeah,” Kurobe added, “and my family’s among the blacksmiths that supply ’em all!”
“So you can make those swords yourselves?”
“I am more versed in a straight sword,” said Hakuro, “but I have learned how to take care of these well enough, at least. Kurobe, though, is a sort of weaponsmaster to us.”
“Yep! I made all o’ these swords. I ain’t too good at fightin’, but you want me to bang some metal together, I’m your ogre!”
Wow. I had no idea there was a weaponsmith among them. Kurobe was notably weaker than the others, so I guess strength wasn’t the only thing he was good for. This group from four centuries ago might have been otherworlders like me, I figured, not that I had any way of knowing for sure. The important thing was that the ogres were intelligent enough to keep their tradition going.
“Very good,” I said. “In that case, Kurobe, you’re going to be our village’s dedicated swordsmith from now on.”
“You’re on, Sir Rimuru! I’ll do my best for you.”
I introduced him to Kaijin at once, and since they had already met yesterday, our discussions went quickly. The two immediately hit it off, and by the time I left, they were already talking about new weapons they could craft—that, and some kind of weird “research” Kurobe wanted to tackle.
I don’t know if it’s because of this, but it sounded like Kurobe possessed a unique skill known as Researcher. It sounded a tad like my own Predator skill, and it was geared for producing things, offering subskills like Full Analysis, Spatial Storage, and Transform Material. Spatial Storage was basically like my Stomach, and Transform Material allowed him to mess around with the stuff he kept in Spatial Storage. For example, he could “store” a big heap of scrap iron and transform it into solid ingots for further processing. More or less like my Copy skills, then.
It was funny how Researcher gave Kurobe the kind of skills that he, and only he, would find useful. He had also obtained Control Flame and Resist Temperature, and while I’d peg him as B rank in battle, those skills would make him a pretty tough fight for most people, wouldn’t it? Although it seemed the man himself wanted to devote his life to forging katanas.
Now, at least, I was pretty sure the hobgoblins wouldn’t have to worry about where their weapons were coming from. But before they swung into mass production, I really wanted them to craft some swords for me and the other ogres. I gave Kurobe a fairly massive supply of magisteel for the job and set him at it.
“I’m gonna make the best swords you ever did see!” he promised, striking a fist against his chest to prove the point. I was looking forward to it.
Their measurements taken, Benimaru and Soei stepped back outside, dressed in fur outfits. People that handsome, they look good in anything. I am so jealous.
“Hmm? Where’s Shuna and Shion?”
“Ah. Yes. About that…”
Benimaru was a little reluctant to explain. After prodding him a bit, I learned that the two were apparently unsatisfied with wearing simple fur. Given how fancy Shuna’s royal vestments were, I guess I couldn’t blame her. She said she’d just fix up her own outfit, finding bare fur to be too itchy for her tastes.
“Princess Shuna, you see,” Soei said, “is quite gifted with sewing and such. One of the best among us, in fact.”
I could believe it. She and Shion had been dressed in a fabric I could only describe as silk, assuming that existed here. It was made by weaving together string spun for cocoons by nearby creatures known as hellmoths, then infusing the thread with a large quantity of magic for extra protection.
They were also wearing clothes made out of what looked like hemp fabric—not far removed from the bare rags the goblins wore, though much better cared for. We weren’t talking about the same base plants, of course, but it was basically identical. The ogres grew a large amount of a cotton-like crop, something I supposed Shuna would be able to process, and the resulting fabric was sturdy enough.
It’d be useful for everyday clothing, but ooh, that silk! We definitely needed more silken battle gear, what with the defense it offered. It’d be perfect for a base layer underneath the armor Garm made for us. I decided to bring it up once I saw him following Benimaru out.
“I see,” Garm said. “Clothing from woven fabric…”
“Yeah, I was wondering if we could make something out of silk, actually.”
“Silk?!”
I was shocked by how much of a surprise this was to Garm. Though maybe I shouldn’t have been, given how expensive that stuff looked in the Dwarven Kingdom when I was there. Hemp and cotton clothes were all over the place, but silk was a rarity. They didn’t even know how to make it, and the core materials were beyond precious.
“Perhaps I could help with that,” Soei interjected.
Hellmoths were B-ranked monsters, capable of charming people with the powder they released from their bodies, but as larvae, they were defenseless. They simply searched for cocoons containing juvenile insects and harvested those.
I decided to leave the harvesting to our troop of goblin knights, with Soei leading them to whatever secret spots he knew for that. Sooner or later, I’d like to capture some larvae and try raising them in a building on-site. Not that I knew much about how that worked, but if they could raise silkworms in captivity back on Earth, it had to be possible. Probably a bit of trial and error, though.
Shuna and Shion soon stepped out themselves, their clothes refitted. I called for Garm and the fairly bored-looking Dold and formally introduced them to Shuna. “Oh my!” she exclaimed when I explained things to her. “I’d be able to help you, Sir Rimuru.”
So as we talked, I began to delegate duties. Shuna would produce high-quality textiles and fabrics to use for clothing. Garm would craft battle gear made from silk. Dold would dye the resulting fabric and clothing. With their combined efforts, before long we would have all the comfortable wear we needed.
As we went over this, I suddenly wondered if we could use my Sticky Steel Thread for any of it. Given my Cancel Temperature ability, it’d probably be able to handle most heat-based attacks—or make the clothes fireproof, at least.
“Oh, thank you, Sir Rimuru!” Shuna beamed. “I’m sure I will be able to produce the finest fabric there is for you.”
“I hope you will!”
“Just leave it to me, Sir Rimuru,” she added, blushing slightly. How cute. She must have loved being relied on like that. Sewing was her hobby, and getting to use that in the course of her princess duties seemed to provide a lot of motivation.
As far as I could tell with the dwarf brothers, working with such a fetching young ogress would be much to their liking, too. Please, please, please,
just don’t make any moves on her…
She might look cute, but she was deadly. If they tried to give her a slap on the ass or something, I very much doubted they would be alive by sunrise.
I wouldn’t put it past them, either, which was the thing. Being freed of carnal desires like this had made me a fairly cold judge of other people’s character. If I wasn’t a slime, I’d probably be more worried about my own hide than anyone else’s. That was how cute she was. A total demon princess. You’d risk your life trying to ask her out.
On a whim, I decided to whip up a few drawings. There wasn’t any paper around, so I was still using charcoal on wood. My new body made it pretty easy to craft what I wanted, which in this case was what we’d call a business suit in my own world.
I traced a few example outfits for men and women, trying to picture Benimaru wearing them as I did. Given the looks they were all gifted with, I figured these would complement them perfectly. Shion in particular, with her dignified appearance, I thought.
“Very interesting,” Shuna offered when I showed her. “I would be glad to try sewing some of these.”
So that was that. In the meantime, I decided that I’d go with something a bit more informal for myself—a light shirt and some pants, good for the summer heat. I wouldn’t mind some kind of hoodie, either, but no way I could conjure up a zipper on this planet. For now, I had used Thought Communication to communicate my image of how it should look and feel to the relevant people, so hopefully they’d make that for me sooner or later.
With these orders placed, we all took our leave from the workshop, except Shuna.
Lake Sisu was situated in the center of the Forest of Jura, surrounded by a broad region of marshland. It was the domain of the lizardmen.
A smattering of caves surrounded the lake. These formed a sort of natural underground labyrinth that stymied anyone who tried to go inside, and at the end of it lay the vast cavern that contained the lizardman stronghold. There, the race held control over the lake area, secured by the natural protection they were blessed with.