20th Move | Take Responsibility!

After the Escape Protocol was deactivated and Rimuru deposited back in his office alongside a note saying everything was alright, I had to get out of the Gravastar Armor.

Having a chained infant universe wrapped around you might provide the greatest amount of defense I have so far, but requiring a Subspace Diver to get me out is really tedious.

Supersymmetry is a theory that postulates two types of seemingly different particles are in fact one and the same: Bosons (force carriers like Gluons) and Fermions (which make up matter). With an enormous particle accelerator and black holes, I discovered there is another space that overlays our current universe like a blanket, the true 'Subspace'. Within this Subspace, one can only access it if their fermions are transformed into their supersymmetric copy, but a quirk of this is once you transform back, you get the fermion now in a different place.

By controlling how this works, you can seemingly teleport lightyears in distance.

The drawback is it's completely in the air how long I'd stay in Subspace. Working out the math, with my current Subspace Diver, there's only a 3.7% chance of me returning to a fermion state every second. Hence 'tedious' and why I prefer the Doormaker.

Although the ethereal sight you see when you're in Subspace was definitely unique. The differences between me, the planet, and all the stars in the galaxy weren't as sharp as their outlines are blurred. The usual clean distinction between matter and vacuum blended together like an artist's painting.

Now, I've never taken any drugs, but I think this would be what a person on an Acid-trip would see.

Popping into the changing room, I grabbed the clothing I hung on the coat hangers when I had originally moved to get into the Gravastar Armor. Looking behind me, through a thick panel of glass, lies a black sphere: the natural shape of the Gravastar Armor.

I can't help but grimace.

It really is expensive as hell. It took me a whole moon's worth of raw material just to make the damn thing.

Approaching the panel of glass I placed my right hand on it as if to touch the Gravastar Armor.

Still, the armor was well worth it. It separates me from the local spacetime, preventing anything from even affecting me.

If the Gravastar Armor was denser, the planet itself would start to orbit it instead of the sun.

Walking out of the changing room, I found Milim devouring a bowl of candy that a maid chassis had offered with a fervor found only in religious fanatics.

Waiting for her to finish, I couldn't help but wonder why doesn't Milim just use magic to conjure up candy. I mean, it should be quite simple, right? [Magic] has already given me several spells that can create sucrose (C12H22O11), the chemical behind sugar.

After finishing the bowl, Milim then licked the insides as if to try and get any candy she had missed. I felt a knife stab into me when I realized I too used to do that but for bags of chips, I had finished.

"Ahem," Clearing my throat to get Milim's attention.

"My chef! This is some really good candy! Give me more! More! MORE!"

I appear entirely unfazed by her outburst. "Milim."

A simple call of her name caused Milim to snap out of her sugary addicted state.

"Metropolis has plenty more variety of delicious food than I have." I should know, I did give some restaurant owners and corporations the blueprints to create cuisine and dishes that didn't even exist here or in my old world, "how about you have Rimuru show you around the city?"

"Ehhh..." Milim's face shifted to show her pondering the question I asked, "That slime...? But he's so weak! I can check the city myself!"

Yeah, and that's totally going to work well.

"Alright Milim, answer me a couple of questions then. If you get them all correct, then I'll let you go by yourself, is that fair?" I talked to her in a tone that a parent would use when bargaining with their kid.

"Hmmm. Fine." Milim then smirked smugly as her eyebrows went up and down in a provocative manner, "ask away, I can answer any question you give me!"

Alright, an easy one. "What is your name."

"Milim Nava!"

Interesting. Milim has a last name...

"What is it that you seek to do?"

"To eat all the delicious food of the world!"

"What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?"

"Uh," Milim stumbled, and was caught off-guard, "uh, Eastern or Western?"

"Eastern."

"About nine meters a second!" Then she muttered under her breath, "holy cow, who'd thought paying attention to the rambling of a Dragonewt researcher would pay off?"

Damn, Milim was correct! I specifically remembered that fact about Eastern unladen swallows from a book brought from Dwargon by Rimuru.

"What is the circumference of this planet."

"41,012 kilometers."

"What is the half-life of uranium?"

"A what?"

"An element that has 92 subatomic particles that have negative electric polarity orbiting a single nucleus like planets to stars. Half-life refers to the time it'll take for half of all uranium atoms to decay."

"Oh, the one with 146 neutral particles or 143?"

I raised an eyebrow at Milim's terms. It seems that she knows what neutrons are, "the one with 143."

"Umm..." Milim chewed on her lips as her concentration skyrocketed, "umm... those particles generated by Nuclear Magic typically don't exist for longer than the caster's will so I'm going to say it's variable."

"What about the naturally occurring ones?"

"I... I... It's..."

As Milim struggled to answer, I reviewed her previous replies. A sense of surprise courses through my mind at how knowledgeable the seemingly childish Demon Lord was.

She's smart, so why does she act like a kid all the time?

"I think it's 700 million years?" Milim's tone didn't have any confidence, "Primordial Yellow always did enjoy everything related to nuclear."

Primordial Yellow? Who is that? But more importantly, for now, Milim was correct.

Then again, I tilted my head persisting on with what I'm planning despite my guts telling me 'no', "are you sure about that answer?"

"Uh, yeah?"

"I'm asking you: are you absolutely, without a single doubt, sure of your answer being 700 million years?" I stared deep into Milim's eyes, catching her off guard as doubt crept into the pink-haired kid's mind like a poison that corroded away her already low confidence.

"Uh... uh... uh... no! I'm not sure! I think it's 90,000 years!"

My face didn't change, "is that your final answer?"

"Yes!" Milim yelled out brimming with newfound confidence.

"Incorrect!"

I formed a cross with my forearms.

"Duh!" Milim faltered as if an anvil had dropped on her head. Falling to the floor, Milim quickly got up and blitzed toward me. Her arms held my shoulders and started shaking me.

"What was the answer?! What was the answer?!? What was the answer?!?!"

Her sky-blue eyes stared into my crimson. Milim was so close I could see my reflection on her iris and more profoundly inside her pupil.

"It was 700 million years."

"..." Milim's shoulder slumped as she collapsed to her knees before yelling to the high heavens, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

Then she slammed her hands against the ground hard enough that the entire Citadel rang like a bell, "I've been tricked! I've been backstabbed! I've been bambooooooozled!"

Holy shit if Milim does that again the whole floor may collapse!

Like an adult realizing they've messed up and now the child in front of them was crying in a public place, the silent judgment of imagined people caused my entire body to heat up.

"Milim, it's not that bad!" I pleaded, trying to avoid another Ifrit scenario.

"It is! You're just going to pawn me off to your subordinate and forget about meeeeee!"

I'm... not good with kids. Despite wanting them, I can't stand their crying and whining and such. So instead I placed a charge in [Child Psychology] and let the specialty guide my words and motion next.

Slowly, I squatted down to Milim's level and started to gently pat her head, "I don't think it's possible for anyone to forget about you. Where in the hell did you get that notion? Also, Rimuru really isn't a subordinate. If anything, he's an equal, a friend."

Milim's head rose up at the last word, "Friends...?"

How the hell does she, a Demon Lord older than written text, be confused about friends?

There was a caring smile on my face, "Yeah, friends and family. Those people who stay really close to you and care about you while you care about them."

"Like Frey?"

My smile faltered a bit.

That Harpy Demon Lord? The second-latest to join the Ten Great Demon Lords? Even [Psychology] was a bit stumped at how to reply, "...Uh, sure, let's go with that."

Milim then frowned, "mmm, I don't want friends then. Frey always just sucks up to me and agrees with whatever I want to do."

Previously, I felt like the situation was under my thumb, but after Milim's outburst, it finally hit me that I was never in control. [Child Psychology] focuses on how a developing mind would function. Milim's childishness is a front for an intelligent mind.

Basically, Milim is pretending to be a child while having thousands of years of experience. She's too unpredictable.

Rimuru would have a greater chance of peacefully pacifying the Dragonoid. His peaceful and rather... naive nature would serve as a perfect counterbalance to Milim's personality.

And I'd REALLY rather not have another fiasco like with Shizue and the Ogres.

"How about this: if you check out Metropolis with Rimuru, I'll serve you the most delicious dish I could make?"

Food instantly got Milim's attention, "really?"

"Yes, but you have to make sure to be on your best behavior. If I hear a single complaint from Rimuru, you're not getting the dish." I wiggled my finger at Milim.

"Alright!"

The sheer speed with Milim going from cheerful to sad back to cheerful again gives me whiplash and makes her impossible to predict. She's like the personification of the Three-Body Problem in mathematics: I can't 'solve' her since she requires an infinite number of operations.

"Door me."

Opening a Doorway to Rimuru's office, I saw Rimuru sitting in the executive chair with huge stacks of paper next to him while his secretary stood behind him.

Looking at the stacks, I really wonder what's up with the slime's preferring material paper over electronic documents, it's just so weird.

"Hey, Rimuru!" I said while I strolled over to him, Citrinitas eying me warily as I do.

"Eh? Scientia what are you doing here? I'm still busy with that Milim visitation—" Rimuru cut himself off as he saw said Demon Lord looking around at the office in awe, only to scream in horror when I shoved all that stack of paper off his desk.

"Scientia!"

"Take the rest of the day off. You're going to act as the personal ambassador to Milim, who has expressed her interest in modernity," looking at Secretary Citrinitas, "your secretary can help you pick the paper up before you come back."

The purple Kijin wanted to speak up, only to nod once she realize who she was talking to.

There is just something so utterly pleasurable about commanding absolute obedience from others.

Power really is a drug.

I can read Rimuru's body language like a book with charges in [Communication], [Psychology], and [Language], and it's telling me that he wants to do it but is trying to think of an excuse to not have to deal with the childish Demon Lord.

Time to move in for the kill.

"Milim, I'm going to be off now." I placed a hand above her head, "Remember: behave well and you'll get a delicious treat."

"Right right, my personal chef!"

"Door me."

The last look of sheer panic on Rimuru's face before I walked through the Doorway caused me to chuckle a bit as I appear in an alleyway inside the city.

I took a deep breath and leaned onto a wall akin to scaffolding. I felt the back of my head hit the solid concrete structure.

That's two national-level crises in a single day solved.

Then I released that breath, and like opening the valve on a rice cooker, all the stress of the day was released.

I have a newfound respect for elected officials.

"I think I'm going to take the rest of the day off."

Yeah, I'm going to take the rest of the day off.

Walking out of the alleyway, I decided to not use Doormaker and instead take a stroll. Looking up at the bright sky I saw that the sun was nearing the horizon and was mid-afternoon.

I tried to void my mind of anything and just exist in the present.

Tall office buildings flanked the side of the road as I reached a section of what can be considered the downtown area, with the Egg a few hundred meters in front of me.

Metropolis is definitely a strange city to any outsider looking in. Unlike large areas of residence in townhouses, Metropolis' population is all congregated in tall arcologies from which business then sprang forth around. This means the land closest to an arcology is the most expensive.

The board game Monopoly is actually a game about how a slight advantage in the early game can snowball into an unstoppable force. To avoid that snowballing and keep the economy relatively egalitarian, the Tempest Revenue Service heavily taxes people based solely on their property, where after your first living unit, you must pay steadily more and more percentage-based tax if you want to own more property.

Another quirk of Metropolis is that it's really bicycle friendly, which is a given how most people don't have cars yet.

In fact, I stopped and glanced around the six-lane street I'm walking beside, I can count the number of cars parked to the side in two hands while there are hundreds of bicycles, tricycles, and their electric counterpart.

Seeing an orc riding a tricycle ferrying people like taxis reminded me of a sight I saw during a business trip to China. Then, my mind recalled how since there are a lot of refugees in Metropolis thanks to the Orc Lord, the normal orcs have established several funds and organizations aimed at helping those refugees in an attempt at reconciliation.

Wait, wasn't that idea from Rimuru?

Well, those organizations and funds definitely helped in the integration of and forgiving of the orcs by a large majority of the goblins who were affected by the Orc Lord.

Then, my mind wandered into thinking if I should make a massaging machine.

"Does Shizue even know how to do massages?" I wondered out loud, finally continuing to stroll through the city I built, where only a few months ago, was a rural village but is now a true metropolis.

As I walked, I reached a part of the street that has railings that separated the sidewalk from the actual road.

That was when I saw her.

Short blond hair that'll remind anyone of sunlight, the same tight-fitting modern clothing that clung sensually to her body, and a pair of crimson eyes that looks so similar to my own.

She was impossible to mistake. She was the same unclimbable snow-capped mountain.

The girl sat on the railings, her legs twirled and fidgeted around as if anxiously waiting for a loved one with a serene expression on her face.

Ah... of course she's not waiting for a loved one, she's waiting for me. Her killer. Anyone would do the same. Anyone would want revenge after they've been killed. Even if I killed her in self-defense.

But...

Her body is completely back to normal as if she hadn't undergone complete matter dissociation.

How is she here?

How is she still alive?

I should know better than anyone how lethal a Particle Disruptor was. Beyond shooting out topological defects with a core of energy compressed to such a state that it's comparable to a few moments after the Big Bang itself, being caught inside its range will cause your individual atoms to get ripped away, 'disassociated' if you will, from your body.

It is incredibly painful, which... now that I recall how Milim tanked it without a single issue, speaks volumes of how strong that Dragonoid must be.

As you literally get unmade, your cells, your nerve cells that are responsible for your touch, will feel as if it's on fire but a thousand times worse. Just a single glancing hit is enough to cause such pain that the ego part of the soul would shatter from the stimuli.

How many out-of-context situations am I going to meet in a single day?! Why am I always at the forefront of all these national-level crises?!?

I blinked to check if I was seeing things and yep, that girl is still there.

Then, our eyes met, and her face turned into one that expresses satisfaction, and with it, a smile that promises pain.

I ignore [Psychology]'s attempt at saying how I'm seeing things.

Then, the girl started walking towards me.

The distance between the two of us was only ten meters.

At her current speed, she'll reach me in five seconds.

Oh, fuck no.

My guts told me to run, so I listened.

[Silenced Emotion: 90%]

I turned around and blitzed in the other direction.

Even with [Silenced Emotion] running so high, I can't help but still panic at the situation, even if I logically should not be capable of panicking right now.

Running off into the distance completely unlike myself. The back of my mind tells me I should say a phrase consisting of two words to get rid of the threat entirely but my gut is screaming at me to just RUN.

RUN

RUN and never look back.

And so I did. My higher thoughts were blocked out by how loud my gut is screaming.

I became almost a blur as I ran down the streets, running past many pedestrians and officers that would easily get slaughtered by that blond-haired vampire lookalike if they were to get involved. With [Gymnastics] I was able to skillfully weave around between them.

Even if my gut tells me to never look back, my curiosity overpowered my sense of fear and turned to look behind me.

Despite how fast I'm running, she still somehow remains close, a few meters away. She was walking, as though she were merely taking a stroll like I had been planning to before meeting my third (or a return of the first) crisis of the day.

So I continued to run. Just run. Run like I never had before.

But, just like a mirage in a desert, she remains ever the same distance away from me.

Eventually, this game of cat and mouse came to a head when I entered a tight alley, my mind calming down from its unnatural fear as I observed her, currently standing nonchalantly on top of a large recycling bin, blocking my way out.

I finally assess my current situation.

I'm extremely vulnerable. I don't have any weapons. My skintight nanosuit couldn't protect me from this entity's attack. I have no magic spells aside from [Unlimited Alchemy], which I could potentially use to transmute the girl in front of me into pure iron.

But to activate [Unlimited Alchemy] requires a few seconds.

Too slow.

I was running upwards of 100 kilometers an hour, and she caught up to me easily, which means she can close the distance between where I am and where she was standing in less than 0.2 seconds. [Mathematics] was going ham on crunching the numbers on how to deal with this threat.

"So you're the one who killed me huh?" the girl said cordially for some reason. "Ha... it took a while but I've finally found the person who brought me to this world."

Her voice was like that of a silver bell. A sense of calm immediately blanketed the alleyway I'm in.

Seeing the lack of hostility, I decided to return the olive branch as well while discretely charging up [Unlimited Alchemy].

"So who are you?"

The girl looked confused for a second. Then she jumped down and crossed her arms, "I'm the one who you killed earlier, how did you forget?"

The girl spoke of murder in the same tone as someone would use for replying to what they ate for breakfast.

Although, "but... how did you resurrect from complete bodily disintegration? Unless..."

I trailed off as my mind wonders how it was possible. Could her spirit, or soul, survive that? If it is, then it points towards the soul being unaffected by any of the Nuclear Forces and Gravity.

Is a soul bound by spacetime then? Or is it like Gravitons? But what's more...

"Well, that's easy!" The girl said, "I simply came back to life!"

"I don't think you understand what 'coming back to life' from what I did to you entails. I get that you're clearly not human despite looking like one, but to return to life from what I did would mean..." I thought about a moment of how to express just what it would take, "an adult's body contains approximately seven octillion atoms. That is a seven followed by 27 zeroes. Seven thousand million million million. Unless your body is somehow less, you would have to pick up each and every one of those seven octillion atoms and stitch them back together."

The sheer scale and complexity boggle the mind. And she did this in a few hours!

"It requires more than simple regeneration. I don't even know if I'm capable of regenerating from that."

What kind of monster am I dealing with here?

"I'm not human." She repeated, her tone having a hint of annoyance in it.

I literally do not possess the ability to make someone deader than complete disintegration other than maybe throwing them into a black hole. Or perhaps blasting their souls into oblivion using lasers.

"If you're not human, then can— MAY you tell me what you are exactly?"

Best take a respectful tone, so I channeled all my experience talking with my boss from my old life.

The thing frowned. Placing a hand on its bountiful chest, "I'm what you would call a vampire, a True Ancestor to be exact."

[Silenced Emotion: 10%]

"A... vampire?" My tone was one of disbelief. Hearing of that term caused me to think of Dracula.

"Yeah!"

"And it somehow allows you to return from matter dissociation?"

The vampire gained a thoughtful look, "well, I guess I'm more of an outlier than anything, but yes."

I nodded slowly, not even bothering to ask how she could stand in the middle of the day. If she could return from complete bodily disintegration, sunlight should be child's play. Note to self: do NOT mess with interdimensional stuff.

"And what do you want from me?"

"I'll admit, logically speaking I should be trying to take revenge against the one who killed me, but after calming down and realizing I'm in a world completely cut off from the influence of Gaia or Alaya," she said as she brought her hands up in a shrugging motion, "I have far more to gain by keeping you alive since I would probably need the one who brought me here to send me back to my own world."

I relaxed a bit before my guard suddenly went up when Arcueid pointed a finger at me, pouting a bit, "I would like an apology as well!"

The current situation finally sinks in for me despite its surrealness. I'm in an alleyway with my murder victim still alive and not wanting revenge, my murder victim, who is some kind of super vampire that can return despite every molecule being ripped from their body. And now my victim wants my help to return her to her old world while also asking for an apology.

What has my new life come to?

Realizing she is looking at me expectantly, I replied with more sass than I intended to in my voice because honestly, today has just been a tad bit much for me.

"Very well then, I'll help you, and I admit my mistake when I tried to defend myself from your unprovoked attacks,"

Three crises in a single day would be too much for anyone.

Her face scrunched up in confusion before something dawned on her. "Huh?"

Her demeanor completely changed. What once could be described as a sacred snow-capped mountain to be admired from afar now looked like a young teen realizing they've messed up and are now paying for it.

The vampire blushed in embarrassment, her mouth formed into a half-hearted sheepish smile, "w—well I was half-conscious when I arrived! I was in the middle of slaying a particularly dangerous vampire by the name of Michael Roa Valdamjong when I was suddenly transported into the middle of an unknown room. I thought it was a mere trick the vampire had bought to try and deceive me. Then I saw my cousin and then I sensed you and so... I acted violently."

The story sounded extremely unbelievable. First I'm in a Tolkien-esque world and now a character from Urban Fantasy pops in? What's next, a horror movie villain?

"Right."

"I know!" She either wasn't able to sense it or just completely ignored my sarcasm.

Sighing and rubbing my forehead, I took several more deep breaths to stop the anxiety from boiling my body.

So many things happened in a single fucking day. I swear this is just a repeat of exam season again.

Still, my boss once said in business chaos is the fountain of opportunity. Chaos represents a reshuffling of the established order.

And so, seeing how she's relatively peaceful, the prospect of having another potential bodyguard as strong as this vampire in front of me becomes desirable.

"Wait. I just realized I don't exactly know your name..."

A look of surprise appeared on her face, then her mouth formed into a small 'o', "how forgetful of me! There was almost no one in my old world who didn't know of my name. I am Arcueid Brunestud. Since that's a mouthful, just call me Arcueid."

That introduction oozed with the confidence befitting of royalty. So in response, I decided to go for a more casual approach, "I am Scientia, Scientia Tempest, Director of Research and Development of the Jura Tempest Republic."

"So you're like one of those scientists?"

"... yes."

Arcueid blinked several times, "really? How advanced is this world? I mean, to have weapons capable of even scratching me is a feat no modern technology could have even dreamed of. The only things that could harm me are ancient Shinto magecraft and treasures from South America but none of those could utterly devastate me as you did with that rifle of yours."

"..." I'm discussing her murder weapon with her. It never hit me as hard as right now how... perplexing and different being immortal truly is. A normal human would be scared of their murderer, but being a resurrecting immortal, you'd definitely be curious about the thing that killed you.

In short, her common sense is drastically different from mine.

I wonder though, given how I stabbed myself in the throat with that knife without a single moment of hesitation, would I eventually see death as Arcueid sees it?

[Psychology] is saying 'yes'.

"I shot you with a manufactured Monopole. A zero-dimensional defect in spacetime. it disrupts the particle that makes up your body."

Arcueid's jaw dropped and she looked at me with what one can almost describe as 'respect' and maybe even 'fear', "has humanity really advanced so far in this world?"

"I... wouldn't call all of humanity this advanced." I would call them backwater. Then, I brought up the real goal of this conversation, "tell you what, I should assume you to be homeless then?"

"Uh, yeah. I was actually wanting to ask if I could stay at your place. It's nicer than all of the places I've lived in outside of the Millennium Castle." Arcueid scratched her neck like a person asking their friend for a big favor. "All the straight lines, the geometry, and how clean everything is... it's just really different."

My eyes narrowed at her description. Shizue can be excused since before she was kidnapped from her world, it was at the end of WWII. So how doesn't Arcueid, a True Ancestor in apparently the modern era, know about such an architectural style?

"What is the architectural style used in my home inside the Citadel called?"

"I don't know." She said frankly.

"Your clothing would peg you as someone coming from the modern age. So how do you not know modern architecture?"

"Well..." Arcueid seemed to struggle for an answer, "The total time I've been conscious during my multi-centuries of existence is less than a year in total. Besides, whenever I do awake I at most read the newspaper to catch up on what's happening lately, so I don't really pay attention to stuff like architecture." she said casually, contrasting heavily the serious nature of her words.

What the hell? "How?"

"Hmmm, well, I was created as the True Ancestor to kill other True Ancestors who've gone rogue. I'm only awakened when I'm needed to kill off a True Ancestor, and then I just sleep."

A grimace appeared on my face as I took a step back. Well, there goes my idea of having her become my bodyguard.

Major violations of ethics aside, why the hell would you ever give a weapon the ability to gain self-awareness and intelligence in general? Does your weapon absolutely need sapience? Speaking as an individual who's created life using genetic engineering, I say with confidence that intelligence is the greatest gift a Creator can give to a Creation because with intelligence comes a degree of autonomy. It means that you accept the possibility of them rebelling against you.

My brain then dragged me back to a time in grade school when I did a project about child soldiers in places like Africa. In that project, the old naive me swore to grow up and defeat this evil like some kind of superhero.

I looked at Arcueid again. From a simple glance, you can't tell that anything's wrong but... she's a child soldier. I want to hug and then tell her that she no longer has to fight.

"So you've... never really experienced anything?"

"That's correct!" she responded cheerfully, making [Psychology] roil in confusion at the nonchalantness of her answer.

I took another deep sigh. I wish alcohol worked on me.

"I should assume you have no employable skills?"

"What's 'employable skills'?"

"Thought so." I let out yet another tired sigh.

Well fuck. I thought about things for a few moments before asking, "Does the term 'Perfect Homunculus' ring any bell for you?"

Thinking for a few moments, Arcueid spoke in a tone not too dissimilar to how someone would speak of the weather, "well, the Einzberns were known for their homunculus crafting, so they might know more than I do."

Alright, it's decided. With the Citadel in place, the Republic finally becoming fully operational, and the Star Lifters up in space, I'm the safest I've ever been. Then, just like a couple deciding to have a child now that their financial situation is secure, I've decided to act as Arcueid's guardian.

Bringing her here, I have a responsibility to rehabilitate Arcueid into something more than a child soldier.

_____________________________________________

Walking to the living section of the Citadel, Arcueid was like a kid who grew up at a farm now in the big city. She was gawking in awe at how strange everything must've looked while Shizue in an assassin chassis followed closely behind, never straying further than a four-foot distance and staring warily at the newcomer.

While I allow her to express her opinions freely, I placed my foot down on this issue.

In retrospect, it's probably due to a mixture of my feeling personally responsible and me pitying her for being a child soldier that I was this generous.

I was never this generous. The most I would do is perhaps donate a few hundred dollars for some tax breaks and that's all.

Walking through the hallway with walls, floor, and ceilings of metal, I stopped when I reached a door that was made out of wood instead.

I placed my right hand on the handle and pushed in.

The living section of the Citadel was a private project of mine. I've always dreamed of having a modern-style mansion, so I made it a reality when I converted a 20,000-square-foot unused area into my own private living space.

"Woah... it never gets old..." Arcueid said.

The overall color scheme of the living section is white with spots of green and black. The floor was made out of a dark grey wood-like synthetic material while the furniture looked like multiple geometric shapes conjoined together.

I think the specific term used to describe the architecture of this place would be 'neomodern'.

Technology was needless to say, integrated into every aspect of the living section. The floor was self-heating, and there were cleverly hidden speakers hidden all over the place that play music to where ever you go.

More Shizue maid chassis walked out into view to greet me and bow. Within one chassis' hand was a tray with a glass of water standing on it while another held a large metal frame— a datapad, a larger version of my phone.

"""Lady Scientia."""

I think the main thing that differentiates this living section from the penthouse I lived in on the Egg was its application of sleek non-Euclidean geometric design in specific places to break up the areas where it would've become a bore. I would have to commend [Architecture] for this.

"Ah, Shizue," I took the datapad and turned it on. Turning to look at Arcueid who was fiddling around with one of the pseudo-perpetual motion machines on a coffee table in front of a truly enormous television.

"Arcueid. You can play with that later. You need to pick a room you're staying in."

She continued to play around with the thing.

Watching Arcueid play around with the pseudo-perpetual motion machine was like watching a cat play around with a mouse toy.

I'd let her play but I need to get her situated.

So with a single tap on the datapad, I stopped the pseudo-perpetual motion machine's movement.

"Arcueid, come."

The True Ancestor looked disappointed before getting up and following me up the stairs.

"Pick any one of the bedrooms and it's yours for the duration of your stay in this world," I said, "Inside the rooms are datapads similar to the one I'm holding. Pick a theme and Shizue will fill your wardrobe with clothing belonging to that theme. After dinner, Shizue'll give you lessons on the customs and culture of this world—"

I halted in the middle of my speech and looked over to a sullen Arcueid, "—you do eat normal food, right? I could create some artificial human blood for you to drink should you wish for it."

Arcueid stopped and looked at me, a finger on her chin as she thought about an answer.

She really does look like a child who's just been asked a question they don't know the answer to.

"Well... I don't really need food but I do eat it for enjoyment, however ever since coming here I seemed to have... changed" she said the last part with great hesitancy.

"I've seemingly lost the Vampiric Impulse ever since coming here..." Arcueid finished solemnly.

[Psychology] and [Language] say she's got mixed feelings about that, but the feeling of happiness was the most dominant one.

I think what she's feeling is probably very close to those teens who have just transitioned into adulthood, those who just started their adult lives who feel both fear and jubilation at the newfound freedom.

"What is a True Ancestor?" I asked in an attempt at distracting her from thinking of her past.

Arcueid blinked several times before responding, "Seeing as magic is commonplace and not of my own world, I guess it's fine if you know."

Her face turned serious, signaling to me how important the information she was about to give me is. So in response, I turned my attention completely onto her, "There are two types of vampires. Dead Apostles are humans who've been turned into a vampire, and True Ancestors, are the ones who were always a vampire. We were directly created by Brunestud of the Crimson Moon hundreds of years ago after Gaia had made a deal with him: he can walk on Earth in exchange for building a counterforce of the planet."

Arcueid seemed to fall into nostalgia as she spoke about the past, "I don't think my Grandfather can get to this world. As powerful as the Kaleidoscope is, I doubt it can go through that... that..." her eyes narrowed as she seemed to struggle to describe something, "that wall of death, of entropy, of nihilistic energy. The only reason I think I was able to go through was due to your miracle technology that temporarily opened a hole in it."

Well, that was a lot of information about her world, I thought inquisitively.

So... does that mean, based on what she said of this 'Brunestud of the Crimson Moon' seems to be some kind of alien? And that Gaia has seemingly complete authority over Earth?

But more importantly, there's a barrier that separates mine and Arcueid's worlds. How is anything made out of nihilistic energy? Entropy describes a lack of useable energy and the barrier separating our two worlds is made from some kind of... [Particle Physics] calls it Anti-energy.

Concerning.

"Very well, I shall leave you to it and research ways to pierce that 'wall of nihilistic energy', if you're feeling stuck, just ask Shizue to open a Doorway to the outside." Just as I was about to leave Arcueid to it, I got a notification on my phone concerning another potential issue that demands my attention.

"..."

I squeezed my eyes shut before tilting my head to face the ceiling.

"Boy, I just can't get a break, can I?"

"It appears so, my Lady," Shizue said neutrally. If this had been any other conversation I wouldn't have thought much of it, except in this case I knew she was sassing me.

"Not the time Shizue. Door me."

_____________________________________________

I popped into the middle of a standoff between Milim and four demihumans in dark blue armor. Multiple security personnel, or police officers, stood between the two of them like the cartilage between two bones. Rimuru himself was seemingly barely able to contain Milim, who looked like she wanted to kill those demihumans.

There were also dozens of more heavily armed police forming a perimeter and making sure normal civilians stay at a safe distance.

"Comman— I mean, Director Scientia!" A hobgoblin security guard trotted over and saluted.

"Give me a quick rundown of what happened."

"Director, these demihumans came to Metropolis and demanded to see the person who ruled this place. They grew violent when every civilian around them started backing away instead of replying,"

If they had done this in a place like New York, they'll be given weird glances since the residents of this world knew that people stronger than themselves existed and no one wanted trouble.

"That was when Lady Milim tried to act out before President Rimuru restrained her. His security detail then alerted the local police of the situation. However, it seemed—"

"Ah! A truly fair-looking human, you must be the Queen of this city then!" The most human-looking of the demihumans yelled out and pointed at me, "now we can finally talk terms of your surrender to the Great Demon Lord Carrion!"

I held up my right hand to transmute all the air around the most human-looking demihuman into nitrogen to get him to stay silent. A bit of suffocation should have him gasping for air instead of releasing them. Then, using my left, I started rubbing the bridge of my nose.

Four.

Four fucking crises in one day.

What's worse: it ain't even the evening yet.

_____________________________________________

AN: And now we got Arcueid to brighten up the darkness that is about to come in this AU!

I gotta replay the Arcueid Route in Tsukihime (the old one) again, so expect slower updates instead of the usual daily. Also, I hope I got Arcueid's personality right as it has been years since I've last played the Visual Novel

I asked around the Tensura Discord and got confirmation that no one besides WN Rimuru (Beelzebub was stated to be able to eat the concept of time) and maybe Veldanava had the capacity to manipulate concept Nasuverse style, so neat.

For those who are wondering, yes that is a reference to Isaac Arthur and his ever-excellent exploration into sci-fi concepts and how they would actualize in real life,

Clarification, since the names are different, here's a full list of names compared to canon

Benimaru is Rubedo

Shuna is Albedo

Shion is Citrinitas

Kurobe is Nigerdo

The other two were killed in order for the 4 to escape.