The Wait

After the training was over, Hinata left to return to her duties in a hurry. It almost looked like she was running away from me, but I think she was just very diligent.

I spent the next few weeks visiting various kingdoms, giving them warnings about what occurred in Amrita. Most rebuffed my warnings, and I decided not to help them any further, but a few took my warnings to heart. The Dwarves of Dwargon, for example, took my warning very seriously and decided to join an alliance with Rimuru, which became a tripartite pact when Evelyn joined in.

The small nation of Blumund also agreed to join them, which seemed to make Rimuru quite happy at the time. Hell, even though they didn't join the alliance and rebuffed my claims, Falmuth began militarizing too. I don't think they are stupid enough to attack Tempest as they did in canon if I recalled correctly, not with Shizue there and the alliance pulled together, so I think it was in response to my warning.

I did end up returning to Tempest for a few weeks to visit Milim, as Yumina and Morgan had already returned to their duties by now. While I was there, I gave Rimuru some perspective on how weak he currently was and told him about the Empire and how likely they were to invade.

"Why is it every time you come by here it's just to give me more trouble?" Rimuru asked while face down on his desk.

"Wa-ha ha haha! Don't worry Rimuru! It's just Pops' way of showing he cares!" Milim declared.

I nodded to that, agreeing. "Indeed. I could never cause trouble for people I didn't care about! That's just rude!" I declared.

"It's ruder to cause trouble to the people you care about though!" Rimuru yelled back in classic tsukkomi fashion.

"This guy is fun!" I declared while Milim and I laughed at his expense.

Shizue walked over to Rimuru and began to pat him on the back. "There there." She comforted while Rimuru melted under her touch. Almost literally, being that he was a slime and all that.

I noticed this and stopped laughing. "Huh... nice wife there," I commented.

Both Rimuru and Shizue shot up, backs straight, and blushed hard. They glanced at each other for a moment before both shyly turning their heads away like they were middle schoolers in love.

I watched the whole situation with half-closed eyes. "Lucia isn't going to like this," I muttered.

"Huh? Whose Lucia?" Rimuru asked, Shizue also looked intensely interested.

"Huh? Did I say that out loud? Eh~ don't worry about it too much." I commented.

I felt a slight tug on my shirt and looked down, seeing Milim pulling on it. She looked like a bashful child trying to get my attention and was much more reserved than she normally was. "U-um... Pops, can we talk?" she asked, glancing at Rimuru and Shizue for a moment.

Seeing that, I nodded and we took our leave. I even knocked out that Kijin... what was his name, Souei or something, that was trying to eavesdrop on our conversation. I came clean and confessed that I suspected Rimuru to be Milim's father's reincarnation but without his memories. I even brought in Ramiris who all but confirmed it.

Milim had a complicated expression on her face for the next few days after that and would watch Rimuru closely from the shadows. I don't know what she was thinking about, as she never shared it, but she seemed to have made up her mind after a few days and returned to her cheerful self, though she wanted to be spoiled by Rimuru more now, which he reluctantly gave into.

After that, Rimuru said he needed to leave to go to Ingrassia for a while to keep some unspecified promise with Shizue. I didn't really think it was a good idea to leave his territory unprotected while he was journeying about, so I taught him [Parallel Existance], or rather, I transferred the technique to his [Great Sage] during a handshake before leaving and taking Milim back to her territory.

It was the funniest thing when Ramiris asked me to see who her intruders were in the Dwelling of Spirits dungeon were a few weeks later, only to find out it was Rimuru, Shizue, and their students. I even had Velzard record their faces when I told them that Ramiris was the Queen of the Spirits they were looking for, as they'd come all this way and looked so hard to find her, only for her to be someone they regularly interacted with back home.

Their faces. Priceless.

Something I did find interesting though, was that Kumara was with the class by now. She has named and everything too. Apparently, the Black Ninehead I'd saved from Evergreen was now named Kurama, after another Nine-tailed Fox, but that was a story for another day.

Right now, and while I was nearby, I decided to pay a visit to my least talked-about daughter/sister-in-law, Velgaia. It had been about a decade since I'd seen her, so I wanted to see how she was doing.

Turns out, pretty good. She and Leon were living together now, though apparently, it was purely 'platonic' from Leon's point of view of things. I didn't buy it so I decided to 'train' with him for a bit.

It seemed he'd somehow inherited my Unique Skill [Argonaut], and so I was a bit hard on him when we fought. He seemed to really be struggling the entire time, even though I went easy on him. He was as good with the sword as I was at his age, which was weird.

Like, he's someone who lives with a True Dragon and uses the [Argonaut] skill. It was like looking in the mirror to an earlier version of me. Hell, he even had Nolla after him like I did when I was younger and an elf princess who was obviously infatuated with him (Elmesia) and briefly trained with Sylvia.

Maybe that's why I went a bit too hard on him.

During our spar, he somehow managed to evolve [Argonaut] into its Ultimate Skill form while we were fighting too, which was odd. It was almost like he thought were fighting to the death or I was going to kill him or something, but I ignored it and beat him up.

I might have allowed my own feelings to get into the matter since constantly broke my daughter's (Velgaia's) heart for 300 years by rejecting her constantly but also strung her along, gaslighting her into thinking that maybe there was a chance for them to get into a relationship.

People who did that were scum.

<<...Evelyn...>> Velzard dryly commented.

People who did that and weren't me were scum.

...

After leaving Leon in the care of Velgaia, who was looking at me kinda funny, I headed back home. There really wasn't much left to do. I wasn't going to get involved with Guy and Rudra's game, so I couldn't just beat the Eastern Empire down for what it was planning on doing, so all I had to do was wait. /1\

Guy wasn't being a slouch either. He knew the final showdown was coming and was preparing for it himself. He was constantly trying to increase the number of Demon Lords in his Demon Lord seat, even offering it to Milim, which she didn't immediately turn down. He also capped the number fo Demon Lords at 8, hoping some Majin would come by and knock Carrion and Frey out of the running, as they were really too weak to continue being on the council.

He even asked me if I could convince Milim or Yumina to attack them and take their titles. He asked me if Evelyn was fair game as a piece on the board, but I told him she wasn't, so he gave up on trying to bring her to his side. He was already happy with how strong Lilith was, so he didn't need anything more form me. Luminous also had some excellent pieces too (Aria, Albert, Gadora, Hinata, Maria, and Granbell) which could make up for a lack in Evelyn.

The funniest plan of his thought was when he tried converting Leon to his side by transforming into a beautiful red-haired female form to seduce him. I didn't stop him but shared a good laugh with Velzard when he was immediately shot down without a second thought by Leon.

He was probably the one viable target in their game he probably COULDN'T seduce no matter what. And while Velgaia didn't like that she had a new rival, she knew she couldn't beat Guy, so he began hanging out around Leon constantly too. It seems Leon was feeling constantly stressed about the who situation, but I decided it was spiritual training for everyone involved and ignored that whole situation for now.

The most important thing that happened during the year-long wait was that Velzard and I were able to finally relax again like we used to. Surprisingly enough, having more activity in just a few days, spread over several months, than I'd had in entire centuries before now, was rather tiring. I literally hadn't been so active since before Milim and Yumina were born.

Having the same daily routine every day for months was probably hell for some people, but for Velzard and me, it was bliss. I'd wake up early in the morning before Velzard (technically she was also awake due to being my Manas but pretended to be asleep to be pampered) and make us a large breakfast. I'd bring that breakfast to bed and have breakfast in bed with the wifey. Velzard and I would then rewatch some TV show or Anime from my memories while relaxing in bed until noon. Then I go out for training while Velzard made a light lunch.

We'd walk around Amrita, sometimes meet stop by a Cafe or something for lunch if Velzard was feeling too lazy to make something or her physical body was sleeping. We'd teleport to a random island in the afternoon and either fight or fuck for a while before coming back home and enjoying a meal. The loser of the Fight or Fuck would make dinner, which meant Velzard usually made dinner unless I wanted to spoil her or she created a new trick or played dirty by interfering with my Skill usage to win.

At Night, we'd cuddle up and just talk about small nothings. Anything we were thinking of really. Velzard's new hobby of messing with Skills was something she talked to me about constantly. Apparently messing with skills as a Manas was unlike anything possible to experience as a human or physical entity and was hard for me to picture or imagine, but I listening to her talk so passionately about it was more entertaining for me anyway.

Veldanava I loved her so much. /2\

Despite this, a few events DID occur, and during my relaxation time. Falmuth did attack Tempest, but without the Clayman/Yuuki proxy, the attack was disorganized and killed many more civilians. Even one of the students was killed. I think his name was Kenya or something. Thankfully, since Rimuru City itself was 'Floor Zero' of Ramiris' labyrinth, everyone who died was able to come back to life after the fighting was over, but this presented another problem.

Since none of Rimuru's friends were 'permanently dead' like in canon with Shion, so he wasn't going to be forced to kill the enemy army to awaken on the off chance to revive them. This would be a bit of a problem since, without this, Rimuru wouldn't attempt to awaken as a True Demon Lord. I was correct. He definitely didn't do it intentionally, but thankfully he still massacred the enemy army which allowed him to awaken anyway.

I felt like, as a Hero, I definitely shouldn't have been rooting for the death of humans and the awakening of a True Demon Lord, but they brought it upon themselves and Rimuru was the reincarnation of my friend who I owed everything to, so I quickly brushed that thought aside.

Rimuru eventually summoned Noir to protect him while he slept since he was alone and didn't have anyone to protect him at the time and couldn't make it back to town. Not that it would have helped since everyone there also fell into Evolutionary slumber.

I noted that Mjurran also evolved, as unlike canon, she had been a subordinate of Rimuru for a while now. She became genuinely youthful again, but that's a story for another time.

Velzard and I watched the entire thing through [Clairvoyance], just in case we needed to interfere. I even noticed that Milim was watching from far away, probably worried about her father's reincarnation but left once he woke up. I smiled gently at that.

'That girl is too kind.' I thought proudly.

Another surprise? He became nearly a hundred times stronger than he a before, rather than just 10 times. Velzard made sure to double-check the World System logs to find out why, but it was because he had two Demon Lord Seeds which awakened simultaneously.

The first was obtained after I gave him the elf's body. Apparently, he was strong enough then to develop one himself.

The second one belonged to the Orc Disaster he consumed. /3\

While that was extremely surprising, I didn't fret too much about it, as he was still weaker than I was now and his EV was only a bit over 12 Million. It wouldn't exactly be easy, but if push came to shove, I could still kill him if the need arose.

The biggest surprise, however, wasn't that he awakened. It was that the little differences in his soul between him and Veldanava shrunk drastically. I actually had to check for quite a while before I noticed the difference.

His soul was extremely close to that of Veldanavas, just missing the Dragon Factor. /4\

Theoretically, I could give him the Dragon Factors right now using [Abhoth]'s authority over the World System, but Velzard convinced me not to. Rimuru's Dragon Factor was something he created artificially after using the data on two different factors, Veldora's and Velgrynd's to make his own which was unique to him alone.

Technically I could also make my own Dragon Factor if I could get my hands on it, but because Velzard's soul is literally fused with mine, I basically already have hers, and making my own would serve literally no purpose other than wasting time and a boatload of magical energy.

Plus Velzard said I couldn't.

It would technically separate us into two separate entities again, as we would be two different True Dragons whereas right now, I was technically the True Dragon of Frost already. If Velzard and I were to somehow die and even our souls were destroyed, we'd still respawn somewhere in the world after a while as one being with both of our consciousnesses just missing some memories.

If I received my own factor, then we'd respawn separately as two different beings and I wouldn't have her as my Manas anymore, which was unacceptable.

Anyway, after his evolution, Rimuru and his cohort began plotting the downfall of Falmuth and making Youm the king with Mjurran the Queen, which was when I checked out. So long as he doesn't start genociding the civilians, I really didn't care for the politics of the whole thing.

Though I will mention that it was a little funny when his first reaction after awakening was wondering aloud if I'd come after him to kill him since he was a Demon Lord now.

.~.~.~.

/1\:

The reason Velgaia was looking at Alaster funny was that he was going HARD on Leon and gave him the beating of his life. Leon genuinely believed Alaster was trying to kill him, but Velzard told her that Alaster was beating him up because of his constant rejection of her.

She thought it was a bit sweet that he'd do that for her, but at the same time, was mad he was hurting her beloved Leon, so she was conflicted. She was even more exasperated when Velzard told her that a small part of the reason why he was fighting was because of how similar Leon was to himself and Alaster's annoyance at his younger self's attitude.

Leon, on the other hand, was knocked out almost immediately after unlocking the [Metatron] Ultimate Skill, so he now assumes Alaster was trying to push him to achieve a new level of power and is very grateful to him, thinking he was a bit like himself and just was bad at expressing his true feelings and hiding behind goofy reasoning.

Unfortunately, because of how Leon never really talks about his feelings and his stoic countenance is hard to read, Velgaia thinks Leon now hates Alaster, so she is constantly telling him about how great her father is, trying to get him to like Alaster, which has only made Leon even more of a secret fan.

/2\:

MC is saying "Veldanava" her rather than 'God', so it was actually 'God I love her so much', but since Veldanava IS God in this setting, he used his name.

/3\:

To be honest, I don't know why this ISN'T Canon. Rimuru was stronger than the Orc Disaster so he should have had one. The army he killed was even 20,000 people strong, meaning he had twice as many souls as needed and the extra souls were never mentioned as being in storage afterward.

It's also possible to double awaken like this, as Chloe, as Chronoa, is only as strong as she is because she got Hinata's Hero's Egg and her own which both awakened.

/4\:

This is all but confirmed in canon, as when Michael was absorbed into Rimuru, he basically confirmed that Rimuru and Veldanava were one and the same, but Rimuru still needs to become an Ultimate Slime before it is perfect.