by Fuse
“You sure you’re okay, then?”
“Bahhh! They call me the King of the Dark City, you know. Don’t worry about me. I’ve got enough strength to look out for myself!”
The King of the Dark City? Did Blumund even have a city like that? Maybe he was referring to the poorer districts of this nation, but even that was heaven compared with the kind of place Yohm grew up in. When it came to law and order, Blumund was on the relatively decent side. I’d take his word for it, though.
“Uh, you really ought to be more careful than that. I’ve got a big job I want your help with.”
That’s right. I had been in talks with him about all kinds of matters. If he picked a fight with some noble punk and it got out of hand, that’d be trouble for me.
“Wah-ha-ha! It’s fine, it’s fine. When it comes to good fortune, you’ll find none better than ol’ Mjöllmile here! Look at the relationship I’ve built with you, for starters!”
There’s just no fazing him, is there? That’s what I like about him. But I couldn’t afford to wait until after something happened. Maybe I should bring on a bodyguard or two for him, I thought as I watched him laugh it off.
“So, Rimuru, what brings you here today?”
I recalled what we had to talk about.
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We were planning to hold a grand festival, attended by the monsters of the Forest of Jura and all the world leaders from the human realms. We called it the Tempest Founder’s Festival, and we had already picked the dates for it.
With things patched up between Hinata and me, all my anxieties were gone. The date of Yohm’s coronation as king had also been decided, and we had sent word to all the neighboring countries to help that plan along. Rigurd and his team were busy writing up invitations to the leaders we wanted there, but they weren’t the only ones in full work mode. News of the nationwide festival had riled up enthusiasm across all my domain’s monsters, and each of my administration’s departments was formulating plans to wow them during the event.
Look at Shuna, for example. She intended to launch an entire lineup of new dishes to impress our guests, as well as open Tempest’s first café, offering a variety of colorful cakes. Yoshida, whose café in Englesia was now a favorite of mine, was assisting in the effort—he had once turned down every offer I sent him, but the moment he set eyes on Shuna, I could see him start to get fidgety.
“Be… Before I opened this café, I enjoyed the support of a great number of people. I’d be happy to help you, too, but I can’t really leave here…”
“I hope you will reconsider,” Shuna said with a polite and elegant bow, one hand over the other. It was a little show-off-y but powerful enough to shake the heart of any man. I figured it’d work well enough, but:
“Mmh… Flirting won’t work on me, you know. If you want to convince me, do it in the kitchen! If you can wow me with your culinary skills, I would be glad to consider it.”
Thanks to Yoshida, this was now a cooking battle. Nothing worth worrying about for Shuna, though; anyone could recognize her cuisine was first-rate.
“Shuna, give him everything you’ve got! Make this cocky baker beg for mercy with something spectacular!”
“Yes, my lord!”
“Whoa, who’s being cocky now?!”
I ignored Yoshida’s complaining; Shuna was ready to go. Yoshida’s own skills had lit a fire under her.
With the café kitchen left to her, Shuna began cooking up the dish nearest and dearest to her heart—tamagoyaki, a rolled-up scrambled egg. Simple, yes, but one’s ability to execute it perfectly was the ultimate way to test a chef’s acumen. Yoshida eyed the results placed on a dish, then nervously swallowed before silently stabbing it with a fork and bringing it to his mouth.
“It… It’s amazing!”
A one-hit KO.
“Thank you very much,” said Shuna, smiling—and that smile was the final blow. Yoshida finally gave in, roundly defeated in heart and taste buds.
“Pfft. Well, you got me! But this is a special favor, all right?”
It was funny, watching this burly middle-aged guy act all shy around Shuna. He was practically falling over himself for this fetching young woman with light-pink hair. I think he was smitten from the very start, actually, but better not to say that. If he wanted to play it cool, it’d be mean to stop him.
So Shuna and Yoshida were now a pair in the kitchen. I had no doubts they and their work would be a star attraction at the festival.
Next, we had Gabil. The dragonewt was working with Vester to build a presentation devoted to the history of healing potions. They intended to keep the core fundamentals of their research a trade secret, but they wanted to use this pavilion to recruit new people interested in joining their team. They had enough staff for now, they said, but just wanted to find potential hires with the kind of passion they wanted.
Garm (eldest of the three dwarven brothers) and Kurobe planned to show off their own wares at the event. Their pavilion would be alongside Gabil and Vester’s, and already they were talking about competing to see who attracted the larger crowds. Glad to see they were using this festival to have a little fun.
Kaijin was also set to return the night before the bash. I told Geld to take a break during the event, so construction should be largely complete before then. I informed my staff that our prisoners of war deserved a little celebration as well; they’d be enjoying a feast over in their own facility. A few people would have to work during the holiday, but we made sure to accommodate their schedules so they could trade off days and not be stuck on duty the whole time. The festival would continue for about a week, so I wanted everyone to get in on the excitement.
Come to think of it, Shion was planning something, too. She was very confident about it (“Hee-hee-hee, I hope you’re looking forward to it, Sir Rimuru”), so I was half-excited, half–scared shitless. That…and Veldora was alarming me with his suggestions again. Better do something about that before he starts freaking people out…
Looking at all these people, I figured I should probably pitch in somehow—which brings us to the involvement of my old friend Gard Mjöllmile.
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A manor servant brought me some tea. I had come here many times before, so he was used to me and provided a couple of the cookies I liked. Taking a sip of the drink, I grinned. It was just as tasty as always, helping put my mind in a better place. Time to move on to negotiations, then.
“Anyway, Mollie, I’ve got another job for you. Don’t worry; it’s an easy one this time, I promise.”
“Oh, another bright idea of yours? You always bring such fascinating projects to the table, but they certainly require a lot of…start-up work, to say the least.”
He grinned at me. Despite his complaint, it was clear he was interested in what I had to offer him.
My project to bring fast food to this world—burgers, the whole bit—was still underway. I had handed my outline of what needed to be done to Mjöllmile, and he was in the midst of executing it. The plan had been on the back burner for a while, what with Hinata marching on me and everything, but I wanted to come over and see how it was going, as well as talk about putting up a satellite location in Tempest in time for our festival.
“Hee-hee! Oh, don’t be a stick in the mud, Mollie. You know our recent project? Before we launch in Blumund and Englesia, I’d like you to maybe open up a test location in my nation first.”
“Oh? You know, I actually appreciate that offer a great deal, because I was just thinking about where we should train our staff. But if you’re proposing that, have you worked out your differences with the Crusaders?”
He looked a bit concerned. I must have left him too long without updates. Although I didn’t intend for it to turn into a fight, we had certain Luminism doctrine issues to deal with. If we were going to continue dealing with the Western Nations, we couldn’t afford to ignore th
e Holy Church issues. Now, however, that was all taken care of. We had nothing left to worry about.
“Hee-hee-hee… Yeah, I ‘worked them out,’ all right. Hinata and I made amends peacefully, and I also worked things out with Lu…”
“Lu?”
“Lu… Loose ends! We managed to set a few ground rules and tie up any loose ends, that’s all. Everything’s peachy keen now!”
“Ahhh, I see! And here I thought the Western Holy Church was a much more intimidating group to work with. Glad to see they’re more reasonable than that. Maybe I was too worried for my own good!”
Mjöllmile gave me a relieved smile. I politely smiled back, sweating on the inside about the mistake I just barely avoided making. If I had followed through there and said Luminus’s name, there’d be hell to pay—which I could deal with, but what if she decided to rub out Mjöllmile as well? I was inviting both Luminus and Hinata and her Crusaders to the Founder’s Festival, so I’d better not shoot my mouth off before then—not that I knew whether the demon lord would deign to grace my little event with her presence. She’d probably be like “Why would I ever let myself be seen among the rabble?” or something. I’m sure she’d be an incredibly demanding visitor if she showed, so I honestly didn’t mind if she declined. Though, maybe I ought to encourage her to attend…? I don’t know.
“In that case,” Mjöllmile happily exclaimed as I thought about this, “let me show you the results of our training so far!”
There was no point wondering about whether she’d come. I needed to consider my own program for now.
“Oh, has it been going well?”
“Nothing less than perfect! We’ve trained them to the point that everyone can perform their tasks on the same level.”
“Ah, I knew you wouldn’t let me down, Mjöllmile!”
We grinned at each other. It sounded like making our debut at the fest wouldn’t be an issue.
“So can we put up a storefront offering burgers, hot dogs, fries, and the drink lineup we talked about?”
“That we can. And I think we can attract customers with those beef skewers dipped in the ‘secret sauce’ you talked about. Pairing them with a rice bowl will definitely improve our bottom line.”
“It’s been getting good reviews?”
Mjöllmile briskly nodded. “It’s become a low-key staff favorite, that’s for sure.”
Making yakitori skewers out of cowdeer and chiducken seemed to satisfy people.
“Great! Let’s add that to the menu, too. Do we have enough employees to work with?”
“Well, for the moment, I’m thinking we could launch with upward of twenty locations. But starting that big would take a fair amount of money. We’d need backup personnel, which I’m training right now—that’s a necessary expense, the way I see it. So along those lines, if we can deploy more gradually, say five locations at a time, that’ll put us well within budget.”
That’s Mjöllmile for you. He fully understood my proposal, and already he was working out any staff issues involved. In that case:
“All right. Well, sorry to trouble you for this, but can you bring over around five of your best employees?”
“Five? What did you want from them?”
“Well, I’ve got this friend of mine. His name’s Veldora.”
“V-Veldora?!”
“Yeah, and he’s, like, super–worked up about opening a hibachi booth at the fest.”
“Er, is he…?”
Mjöllmile seemed to be growing visibly paler as I explained. It worried me, but I soldiered on.
“So you know, it’d be way too dangerous to leave him running that by himself, right?”
“I—I would say so, yes…”
I beamed at him. “So that’s why I want five of your best staffers to help him!”
Mjöllmile, watching me gleefully dump all the responsibility on him, turned his eyes toward the ceiling. “Would you be able to guarantee the…er, safety of this staff?”
“Of course! Whenever they have any problems, they can come right to me. If Veldora starts getting all uppity, I’ll put ’im in his place.”
“I trust you will, yes, but… Um, we are talking about the Veldora, yes? The Storm Dragon?”
I suppose we were. Guess Mjöllmile knew the name, didn’t he?
“Is that bad?”
“Ahhh… Bad may not be the correct term. I just wonder if the crew will be, too, well, petrified to get any work done…”
Hmm. I should’ve known. Yeah, if you haven’t met Veldora, you must think he’s crazy scary, huh? Catastrophe-class, and all that.
“Well…maybe that’s not a good idea, huh?”
“No, perhaps not… If he could at least assume another name for himself, temporarily, our staff could work for him unawares…”
Aha!
“Yes! Brilliant, Mollie! Let’s give him another name so nobody knows who he is!”
“Huh? You—you can do that?!”
“Sure. If he whines about it, I’ll just tell him he can’t do the hibachi thing at all. Right, let’s do that. And I’ll pay a special bonus to the five people you pick for me, so let them know I’m counting on ’em, okay?”
Whether Mjöllmile was keeping up with me or not, I considered this problem as good as solved. Veldora was being as selfish as always, but we were entertaining world celebrities here. Embarrassment would be the least of our worries if he gave all our guests food poisoning or whatever, so I couldn’t rest easy until I knew there were people who could watch over and direct him. I didn’t want to dismiss him out of hand, but I was too nervous to let him off the leash completely, so it’s a lucky thing Mjöllmile had the staff trained like I asked him.
He looked like he wanted to tell me something, but probably nothing important. The ball was in his court now.
Rimuru looked supremely happy with himself at resolving this issue. Mjöllmile, meanwhile, felt like someone had just thrown a lit bomb into his lap.
L-Lord Veldora?! I knew the seal had been undone, but he wants me to deal with him?!
This was a major headache in the making, for sure.
Rimuru was talking sense at first. Building a stand for the festival would be a good training opportunity. But if they were babysitting Veldora as well, that was another story. Mjöllmile wondered what the hell he had just gotten himself into, but as he observed the smiling, carefree Rimuru in front of him, he decided to take the “Ah well” approach. Ever since Rimuru saved him, he had tried to live life with no regrets. He might’ve been conniving and obsessed with money, but he was nothing if not brave.
“But a festival, though, eh? If we’re talking a large-scale event, I imagine you must have people jumping up and down to join in. A good opportunity for a merchant like myself, hmm?”
He had reason to think so. Many people, merchants and adventurers in particular, were now filing in and out of Tempest. It was starting to get heavily advertised; Mjöllmile was sure they were attracting curious travelers from the nearby towns and villages. That was exactly the kind of situation a merchant stood to profit from.
“Oh, you’re interested?” Rimuru took a sip from his tea, apparently picking up on Mjöllmile’s muttering. “You know, to tell the truth, I’m still wavering on a few things with this festival. I know you’ve helped us decide on some of our attractions already, but I’m still trying to think of a big, flashy centerpiece for the event.”
“A centerpiece?”
“Yeah. Basically, my plan is to turn our town into a kind of health resort. We’ve got our hot-spring infrastructure in place, along with lodging and guest houses suitable for royalty…but I feel like we’re still lacking in entertainment.”
“I see,” Mjöllmile replied, figuring it wouldn’t hurt to hear him out.
As the excited Rimuru then explained, Tempest already boasted a healthy amount of high-end accommodation. Mjöllmile had stayed in it before, so he knew that much. The rooms on offer ran the gamut, providing a selection of things to
enjoy—a nice meal with a fine view of the gardens, an open-air hot spring to relax in, and so on. In the smaller nations of the world, it’d be hard for even the nobility to maintain their own private baths. That went double if there wasn’t any water service, forcing you to physically dump water in a tub and heat it up manually.
To Mjöllmile, who took that for granted, a facility with a hot spring you could enjoy any time you liked was nothing short of mind-blowing…but apparently Rimuru wasn’t satisfied with just that.
“I understand all that,” he said, “but if you already have good food and relaxing spaces, how much more of a resort do you need?”
Rimuru shook his head. “You aren’t thinking big enough, Mjöllmile. Me, I think that won’t be enough on its own. I’d like some kind of project that everyone can have a little more fun with. Like, for example…”
What Rimuru then laid out for him was a complete recreational tourism strategy for the Forest of Jura. They’d provide travelers with day-long walking tours deep into the forest, accompanied by a guide/bodyguard. They’d hold fishing tournaments at the nearby canyons, hunting tours amid untouched natural reserves, and so on and so on. All the needed equipment would be available to rent for anyone interested.
“That does sound exciting. It’d certainly attract the kind of nobility with all the time in the world on their hands—and for those with more active work lives, it’d be a fine way to relax.”
“Right, you see? That’s what I’m hoping for, but I’m just wondering if there’s something we can get everybody in on, you know?”
One of Rimuru’s aims with the Founder’s Festival, it seemed, was to encourage repeat visitors to Tempest. He was coming up with all kinds of things to keep travelers engaged and interested in the area. Mjöllmile was both amazed and exasperated. How many years ahead was he even thinking?
“Well, why not use Englesia as an example to imitate? The theater is quite popular over in their capital, I hear. They hold operas and stage plays nearly every day of the year there. You also see fighting tournaments held live at the arena…”