The envoys from Sarion

I was currently inside my office after having some meetings to organize the festival. Veldora had found a new home in Ramiris' labyrinth where he could freely release all the magicules he wanted. Thanks to that we were able to get an unlimited supply of Magic Steel and Hipokute herbs by placing them near him. I had plans for the labyrinth but they were in the future.

I had "sold out" Beretta to Ramiris in exchange for the free use of her labyrinth. Beretta was now working as a semi-permanent assistant to Ramiris for the time being. While she was still the "CEO" of the labyrinth she had allowed me to connect to it. And with Raphael working in the background, we were able to gain control of it. For now, it would work as a training ground and a research location.

Shuna was standing in front of me after she brought me something to drink.

"How are the kids doing? It was nice to meet them."

"They are doing well, they will start their classes in a few days after getting settled."

"Say, Rimuru-sama, you looked to be really good at taking care of the kids yesterday… It made me think… Would you want to… have a kid with me?" she said as a small blush appeared on her face. Her voice became smaller near the end.

Standing up and walking towards her I grabbed her left hand, the hand where she had her ring.

"You know, I don't think that would be a bad idea. However, I don't think now is the right time. There are still a lot of threats in the world that have to be taken care of before it is safe to do so. And also…" I said while touching the ring she had placed on her ring finger. "Maybe it would be better to make it fully official before. A wedding wouldn't be too bad."

Just before anything else could happen a knock was heard on the door breaking the mood. I felt Shuna squeeze my hand and when I looked back at her she had an irritated expression before stepping back.

"*sigh* Come in" I said, a bit irritated as well.

Souka stepped into the room and announced to me.

"Lord Rimuru, envoys from the Sorcerer's Dynasty Sarion have arrived. They wish to speak with you…" She trailed off at the end as she got distracted by Shuna's glare.

Patting Shuna's head, her glare disappeared before I said.

"Alright, organize a meeting room for us to meet. Also, let Veldora know to be on standby. Worst case scenario he might be a good deterrent against a declaration of war from Sarion."

"Understood." Souka said before disappearing from her place.

"I'll go prepare some snacks." Shuna said after Souka left.

...

Walking into the room was a well-dressed blonde man followed by four people in military uniforms behind him. A dark-haired man that was standing behind him spoke for the group.

"Currently present is the archduke of the Sorcerer's Dynasty Sarion Erald Grimwald."

With a slight bow, Erald spoke next.

"It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Leader of the Forest of Jura, I come here by the orders of Queen Elmisia El-Ru Sarion. We are here as representatives to get to know your nation."

Behind me stood Rigurd, Shion, Benimaru, and Shuna with some food prepared. Once they had finished speaking I spoke.

"It is nice to meet you too Archduke Erald. I am Demon Lord Rimuru Tempest, Leader of the Forest of Jura and of Jistav."

"King Rimuru, before we start I have a personal question. Are you familiar with the adventurer named Ellen? She should be a member of a team led by someone named Kaval."

"Yes, she tends to spend a lot of time around here with her party" I answered, knowing where this was heading.

"So it was you! You were the one who was messing with my daughter's head. When I received her letter I didn't want to believe it but now I know it is true." Erald said as he began to cast a strong magic spell.

'Magic Jamming'

The next moment the spell was stopped by me and the envoys were all surrounded with a blade by their necks. The location in which they were standing was covered by threads that could hardly be seen with the naked eye.

"Archduke Erald, am I to take this as a declaration of war? Your daughter is fine, and I haven't messed with her head. She is just an old friend from back when Tempest was a small village. Though being in homunculus your true body is safe, isn't this a bit too out of hand from the representative of a country?" I said, releasing a small portion of my demon lord aura.

"I apologize King Rimuru, it was a plan to test your response. In hindsight, I should have acted more properly for my position. My daughter spoke of you not being aggressive towards humans and human adjacent races and I wanted to see if what she said was true. I hope you will not hold a grudge towards Sarion for my actions." Said Erald with a trace of panic on his face.

Waving the shadow squad away they disappeared, taking away any sign that they were there.

"I am only aggressive towards those who attack first. Since it was a dud spell I won't take it to heart. If you want to ask about Ellen you can ask her the questions yourself once we are done here, she should be somewhere in Tempest right now."

"Thank you, for you to see through my spell so quickly, and the fact that you know we are in homunculus bodies, you must be quite adept with magic are you not?"

"Yes, now should we start properly?"

"Of course, I apologize for getting off track. The first question I had to ask is, How did you become a demon lord?"

After telling them a shortened version of it I finished by saying.

"...And after defeating the army it happened by chance. The Labyrinth Queen Ramiris and Demon lord Milim invited me to join them. And since it would discourage other people from attacking I accepted."

"You are familiar with both Demon lord Ramiris and Demon lord Milim? Does that mean that you intend to go to war with Falmuth?" Erald asked while looking at me seriously.

"No, the war is already won. King Edmaris fully surrendered."

"Is that so…? Then what about Jistav? You said that you were the leader of Jistav, but as far as we know Jistav belongs to Demon Lord Clayman."

"Do you remember the incident with Charybdis? That was Clayman, he was preparing an army to take over my country and the Forest of Jura so I retaliated. Now I am the king of Jistav, there is no point hiding it since it will be public information pretty soon."

"Then what happened to Demon Lord Clayman?"

"He is dead."

After a moment of silence, the talks continued. He asked about my alliance with Blummund and with Dwargon, he then asked about the western holy church.

"You are an enemy of the church of Luminous just for the fact that you are a monster. What do you intend to do if they attack?"

"That won't be a problem, I recently met with one of the Church's representatives, Hinata Sakaguchi, and we were able to come to an agreement. There won't be any hostile relationships between us two."

"Impressive, the kingdom you have built has grown so much in such a short amount of time. On paper, there is nothing bad about it so far. You have the proper connections and alliances, your location is great. Your people are strong and they are happy. And I walked around the city before coming here, and it is without a doubt a beautiful city, with good technology. I only have one final question for you. What do you intend to do with your strength"

"I plan to defend my people. I have said this to many people before but I will say it again. I like this world. I think it is a great world with many potentials and things to explore. I want to protect all of those who follow me, and I want to have a world where my people can be happy and live without worrying about their safety.

But I know that we are monsters, not something that is easily accepted by most kingdoms in the world right now. So I need the strength to defend it. The reason why I will not hold back when defending my country is to send a message. We won't be respected and accepted until they know they can't defeat us. So I will continue to become stronger and grow the strength of my people.

The reason I formed an alliance with Blummund and Dwargon was to send another message. If you come to us with friendly intentions we can be on friendly terms."

After I finished speaking Erald stood up and gave a slight chuckle before bowing down once again.

"I will once again apologize for my actions at the beginning of this meeting. With the authority given to me by my queen, I would like to request the establishment of diplomatic relationships with your kingdom."

"We accept, there are many things I would like to discuss with your kingdom so after the celebrations are over it would be a great time to talk about them. You know of the road that has been built to Dwargon, and I would like to create another road to Sarion among other things."

"I will inform my queen of this on the way back, I think we are done talking so we will take our leave. We will stay in Tempest for a few days before leaving."

"Oh, one last thing. I know your queen is quite a busy person, but do let her know that she is invited to come to the festival. You as well Archduke Erald, we will be sure to welcome you once you come back."

"Thank you for the-"

A blonde, tanned head popped through the door at that moment.

"Errr, Rimuru, was I supposed to come in? I wasn't sure if I should keep waiting outside…" Veldora said.

"*sigh*" after a facepalm I said "Archduke Erald, maybe you should meet one of the guardians of Tempest. Veldora, the storm dragon."

….

(Pov Erald Grimwald)

He almost made a huge mistake in the beginning. If he had started a war against the country his queen had asked him to analyze he would have gotten in big trouble. Elmesia wouldn't have killed him but she would have made sure to come up with a creative punishment that would make him regret not properly thinking everything through.

Queen Elmisia was his niece, he had been with her since she was little. If you knew how she acted with those whom she is close with you would wonder if she is really the queen of one of the strongest nations. Her punishments to those close to her dealt no physical harm, only psychological. At least that was the case for Erald. If Erald was more laid back the almost childish punishments she would give would not affect him. Alas, that was not the case.

The meeting with the leader of the nation of Jura had gone quite well if you ignored the start. He already had a positive opinion of Tempest from the letters his daughter sent him. After walking around the city he had gained an even greater impression looking at the happy smiles of the citizens. But he was prepared to pull Ellen out of the country if it turned out to be dangerous.

The man named Rimuru was someone who should not be attacked recklessly. He had been able to disarm his magic spell in a second and he had even identified that they were not using their true bodies to come here. With the knowledge, they had gathered of the attack from Falmtuh they had found that the response from Tempest was executed quickly and quietly. If it wasn't for Elmisia's information network they might have never found out what had happened.

Listening to him casually recall his experience, Erald made some mental notes. It all came down to the final question he asked to see if Sarion should treat tempest as an ally or if they should destroy them before they grew to be too much of a threat. And the answer Rimuru gave had brought him back some memories. He had heard a similar yet different answer in the past.

Looking at the eyes of the person who spoke those words Erald decided to trust his gut and requested to establish diplomatic relations. He was ready to leave to meet with his daughter before someone interrupted the meeting….

"I forgot. What kind of excuse is 'I forgot'!?!? They had such a huge card hidden until the end! I almost started a war against Veldora. Our old kingdom was destroyed by the child of one of the True Dragons. And I almost started a war with one of them." Erald was having a tough time back in the hotel room he had booked.

"Dad, it's ok… Rimuru is a good guy, I am sure you could have solved the problem if it came to it. He is very nice to us, most of the equipment my party has was given by him. I am sure he wouldn't have started a war over something like that…" Ellen tried to console her father

"Not only does he keep Veldora hidden but now he is trying to take my daughter away by bribing her with gifts!" Erald continued to speak his mind until he got bonked in the head by Ellen.

"It's not like that! We just formed a friendship since we have known each other for so long. Friends help each other out ok. Plus, he has also given gifts to Kaval and Gido, not just me." Ellen tried to reason with her father.

"But no! Don't you see? That's how they get you! They make you think that it's just all casual and he is just being friendly and Bam now they have you in their ropes!

This argument continued for a while longer, the overprotective father versus his daughter.