21 The spirits.

I had a few hours before class started so I decided to head to the library. It's free real state so I might as well gather all the knowledge I can since I can read books in seconds thanks to Sage. Heading straight towards the magic section I decided to make my magic knowledge greater. In a few hours I would be heading to teach so I wanted to get something done in the morning to get myself into teaching mode.

…

As soon as I entered the room I saw a kid jumping at me with a flaming sword. I just reached my hand up and caught it.

"That's not a very nice way to greet your teacher you know."

"What?!? You caught it! How did you do that?" the kid with the flaming sword said.

"Ha, you couldn't even hit the new teacher." a girl with blonde hair said mockingly.

"Alright alright, settle down, go back to your seats. Otherwise, a big scary monster will come out and eat you." I said

"Yeah ri-ahhhhhhhh" the kid with the flaming sword was interrupted in the middle of his retort by Ranga who had come out of my shadow and was charging towards him.

But the very next second Ranga disappeared without a trace.

"See what did I tell you, now go back to your seats and introduce yourselves."

With the threat of the "Scary monster" they followed my orders and introduced themselves.

Kenya Misaki was a ten-year-old boy and he was the orange-haired kid who had tried to attack me.

Alice Rondo was the nine-year-old blonde girl who had made fun of him when he failed to hurt me.

Ryota Sekiguchi was a ten-year-old boy with black hair who appeared to be very timid.

Gale Gibson was an eleven-year-old boy with brown hair and he was the tallest of the kids.

And lastly, Chloe Aubert, a time-traveling ten-year-old girl with black hair and quite the future as a hero.

"My name is Rimuru Tempest, I am your new teacher and I hope to teach you many things while I am here. Following Shizu's request, I have come here to not only teach you but to help you all with the problem you have all received after you have been summoned. I can guarantee that by the time I have to leave you will all have learned quite a lot. And don't worry about being bored, I've got quite a big amount of things planned that will be quite entertaining for all of us. How about we start with a fight? It will let me know in what ways I can help you improve. If you do good in it I promise to give you a good gift. Let's go."

Once we got to the field I called the kids one by one.

"Kenya, you're up first." I said as I drew a circle around me. "If you can get me to leave this circle I'll give you a prize. You've got five minutes, go."

Kenya rushed towards me and tried to slash at my body. I simply pulled out my new sword with its scabbard and kept on blocking his strikes.

"You are using too much energy with each strike, you're gonna run out of stamina like that."

"What are you doing throwing your sword at me? Now you are unarmed" *bonk* I lightly hit him with the scabbard of my sword on his head. "Now you'd be dead, don't throw your sword if you don't have a plan"

…

With Chloe, I followed the same procedure, drew a circle on the dirt and told her to push me out. She tried her Water Jail on me but I sent her a mental communication that said.

<<Nice magic control, however, I don't need to breathe so I can just run the clock if you don't do anything else>>

A determined look appeared on her face and she created water spears all around me that tried to attack at the same time.

'Control Magic'

I disabled the Water Jail and all the magic around us.

"Nice job listening to my advice, here, have some manga."

I threw her a couple of Volumes of manga I had made with some paper I had gotten from Yuuki and judging by her expression once she saw it I would say she liked it.

…

Alice used her stuffed toys to attack me, and if it weren't for the fact they were, you know, stuffed toys she might have been the strongest one in the group. Due to how good she performed I offered her the very special limited edition Slime Plushy. Best gift I could ever give. I might have to create some actual puppets that can cause some damage for her to use.

…

Ryota used his skill to increase his strength but lost his sanity due to a lack of control. I'm going to have to work with him to get him to keep his mind while using his skill, he could get himself and others in danger like that. Since he seemed to listen to the advice I gave him after I gave him some Masayuki toys I had found since I knew he was a pretty big fan.

...

Lastly was Gale… He gave up pretty easily after the first few attacks failed. If there is anything this kid needed was to have more confidence in himself. Anyways since he seemed to listen to me and looked to be a pretty good kid I also gave him some Masayuki toys.

"Not fair, how come I was the only one who didn't get anything?" Kenya asked.

"Well you were the only one who doesn't seem to pay attention when I talk, if you promise to be a good student I will also give you a gift."

"I promise I'll be the best student ever!"

"Alright in that case you better keep your word otherwise I'll take it back."

I handed him a blunt magic-steel practice sword.

"This will help you figure out how to use your magic with your sword better."

With that done I began my time as a teacher.

…

Almost a month had passed since I had become the kid's teacher and it was now time to take them to get their spirits. During this break, I had done my best to teach them many important things such as how the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. I also rescued the Merchant Mjöllmile, that man was a genius when it came to managing money and it wouldn't hurt to have him join me.

I had talked with Yuuki and after talking about the situation with their life spans and how they might not live for long I requested to transfer them to my city. It took some heavy efforts from both me and sage to let Yuuki allow it but in the ned I was successful. The only thing he asked me was to set up some building for the kids to stay in and continue studying and some time to file all the paperwork he would need. It "conveniently" had me traveling back by myself for the first time to organize the buildings and coming back to pick them up the week after.

I requested a temporary leave with the kids to take them towards the location of Ramiri's dungeon which I had stated to be just a field trip to Yuuki. They were so nervous the day before that they almost didn't go to bed. Offering my words of reassurance they finally went to bed so they would have enough energy by daytime.

Once we got to the dungeon we were allowed entrance. We continued to wander around until we entered a suspiciously large room. The doors closed behind us and we heard voices coming from all around us.

"Te-he-he-he, a new challenger enters the dungeon.

Why aren't you more scared.

You bore us, guest

Be more scared

Fear us

Te-he-he-he"

"Oh, hello there, I'm here to talk to the leader of the dungeon, she shou-" I tried to speak but I was interrupted.

"Silence

If you want to meet with our leader you must pass our trial.

Defeat the guardian golem and only then we will consider to give you the chance to meet with our leader."

The lights turned on in the room and a giant golem was standing in the middle. Not to big of a deal let me just.

'Gluttony'

And done.

"Wait! My Golem! What have you done! Give it back!"

A small fairy came out from the shadows and rushed towards me. I caught her midair.

"Hold up a minute, your golem is fine, I can give him back. I do have a request though, would you mind having lunch with us and we can talk about the situation?"

"He is fine!" she released a big sigh of relief "And lunch, ah, uh, sure I don't see why not. As long as you promise that my golem is fine."

…

We were all sitting in the middle of the room as if we were having a picnic. Ramiris was in front of me with her golem behind her.

"I see, these kids sure have it hard. I don't see why I can't help out. As the queen of spirits, I will help you in saving these kids! Follow me, everybody!"

She led us to where we could call upon the spirits and explained how the summoning worked. As the oldest Gale went in first and I followed behind him. When he prayed he was unable to summon a high-level spirit so with the use of gluttony I created an earth spirit for him. This gave me access to the earth spirit magic skill.

Alice was the one who went after and just like Gale she was unable to summon a high-level spirit so I cooked one up with Degenerate and Gluttony. It was a high-level spirit that evolved my shadow step skill into spatial motion and gave me the wind spirit magic skill.

After her, it was Kenya's turn. I made sure to stand closer to him to be ready for his spirit. A spirit in the shape of a boy had appeared.

"Hey there, how are you doing. 'Cause I'm doing fine, I figured I should come down here for some-"

At that moment I used gluttony.

[Analysis of the light spirit in progress.

Success.

Analyzing Hero's egg creation possessed by the light spirit.

Failed.

Increased analysis capabilities are required for deciphering and creation of a Hero's egg.

Storing information for later usage.

Analyzing light spirit magic.

Light spirit magic obtained.

Analysis of the light element.

Similarities to the holy attribute found.

Light magic resistance acquired

Holy magic resistance acquired]

My actions brought a large amount of shock to everyone nearby.

"Oh, um, sorry. I was too focused on helping out the kids get their spirits that I accidentally used my skill. This is a bit embarrassing... Here you go Kenya, as if nothing happened."

Pretending to be embarrassed I passed the spirit to Kenya and after a small round of laughter from the kids we continued with Ryota. I created a water and wind elemental for him and gained the water spirit magic skill.

The last person to step up was Chloe. Before she prayed for her spirit she asked me to get closer so she could tell me a secret.

"You know Mr. Rimuru, I really Looooove you. Thank you for everything"

She gave me a small hug and ran to summon her spirit. I was about to make a mental joke about the interdimensional FBI but before I could a large number of magicules were released in Chloe's location. The strength that was being released by the beautiful dark-haired woman that had just appeared was ridiculous. It felt as if the sky was falling and we would all be crushed.

"Stop that sp-"

Before Ramiris could finish the world around me froze. I could feel the spirit's eyes locking onto me and flying in my direction at a speed I could not follow with my eyes. Even with all that speed the moment she crashed onto me I only felt a soft hug. Wait, I could feel her/

"Rimuru," the spirit said while hugging me tightly " you have to wake me up Rimuru. If you don't… just know that you need to. I- I don't have much time here. Wake me up as soon as you can ok. I'll make sure that everything will be ok."

With those words, she kissed me and began to travel towards Chloe. The world slowly beginning to move once again.

"-irit!" Ramiris finished. But it was too late.

What the hell just happened.