The truth

Heading back to the village, I could see the chaos I caused. With the fighters of the villagers all rushing towards the fence of the village, alongside father, mother, the village chief and 'Hakurou' already standing at the entrance, prepared to defend the village from the thing that caused the huge shockwave just now. Though I could tell by the cold sweat that ran down their back and the worry that plagued their faces that they were scared of whatever it was and worried about my safety, which made me feel warm inside. Feeling my presence as I revealed myself from the jungle, I could see the initial weariness of uncle and 'Hakurou'. Though that didn't seem to be the case with my parents as they immediately opened their eyes wide in surprise and rushed forward, and embracing me with a huge hug. Feeling their worry for me, I I hugged them back and assured them that I was alright, before turning to face uncle who came forward and a confused face, with 'Hakurou' and a few other of the strongest combatants in the village alongside him. Finally realizing who I was, we started to head back into the village, but not before I told him everything was fine and that the others could go home, which he while doubtful, told the others but not without leaving some of the stronger fighters to guard the village.

Sitting down at the village hall, I slowly told my parents, the village chief and his wife alongside about my 'curiosity' towards Veldora and told them about how I snuck out and went to see him, which led to extreme reactions by everyone varying between worry and anger. Though I quickly calmed them down and continued on about my meeting with Veldora, his stories, befriending him and even receiving a name and evolving, thus leading to my new appearance. With the whole thing out of the way, I also told them about my attempt on breaking the imprisonment which led to another round of intense reprimanding. Finally, after everyone got over the worry and shock of it all, we decided to continue this conversation later as they still had to digest the information given.

After a while, me and my parents started to head home. On the way back, I contemplated on the conversation I wanted to have with them about my reincarnation. While this may sound extremely stupid, I didn't think that I could hide it much longer, with how quickly I developed in power and my maturity for my age, the upcoming chaos that would come in the next 20 to 30 years, and most importantly the guilt I had in my heart for hiding something so important from them. My parents had birthed me and taken care of me for the past 5 years, they raised me and showered me with unconditional love and yet I hide something like this, but when I thought of their reaction, I started to feel scared, what if they don't react well to this, what if they come to question why they raised me, what if they don't love me anymore after I told them. With my mind spiraling into the thousands of negative thoughts I held, I slowly started to reconsider if I should tell them, until I heard Veldora's voice in my mind, saying "Raiden, don't hesitate about this anymore. Just tell them about it. Even with the little amount of interaction I've seen, I can tell that they love you a lot. And that there's no way that what you're thinking would even happen." Hearing his words, it felt like he had patted my back and lifted my whole worry out of my mind, clearing my mind. Feeling grateful, I thanked him sincerely and promised to visit him tomorrow.

Finally home, I sat them down before they could start a whole other round of reprimanding me. Feeling confused about it, I said that I wanted to talk which led to them getting a bit more serious and sitting in front of me. With just a little hesitation and fear, I started to tell them about my reincarnation, about how I died in another world and ended up being reborn here. From how I was reborn and received my unique skills and even after my rebirth into this world, I told them everything. Finally finishing, I looked up scaredly only to see their eyes gently looking at me. They told me that while it was a bit surprising to hear about this, they didn't think of me as anything else other than their child, and they loved me all the same. Feeling extremely grateful and loved towards them, I still asked why though. Why is that their only reaction instead of being mad or something. To which they gently replied that while I was reborn and had memories of a different life, I was still the child that mother had given birth to and that they had gave birth to. And that was something that would never change. Feeling overwhelmed, I just hugged them and cried tears of joy, while they hugged me back. After a while, we finally let go of each other and spent the rest of the day together, talking about my parents life before, how they met and everything, and of course how my old world was like.

When the sun finally set, and the night finally arrived, I just sat down and talked with Veldora abit, before cutting off our connection saying I'll visit him tomorrow. Finally alone, I began to think of how eventful the whole day was, from my meeting to Veldora and his evolution, my return to the village and their reaction to everything, to finally confessing the truth to the two most precious people in my life currently. With the whole day being so eventful, I just wanted to go to sleep but I knew I couldn't just yet. With everything out of the way, I had to start making plans for the future.

The events I knew only led up to the events of Charybdis. In order for me to be prepared for my future, I had to increase my personal power and political power. I knew that there were many nations in this world filled with greedy kings and nobles. Not only that, I knew that there were demon lords that were like beings that were the top of this world. Or maybe not, I don't know much about the world yet, and that should be solved immediately. I can't rely on 'Soei' currently cause well, he's a child but that wasn't the only way to gather information. I could go to the different countries myself and gather it that way. Or I could just make runes that function in a way that it gathers information in a certain amount of distance and sends it back to different rune that analyzes and produce a whole report on the information gathered. I can't just have those runes connected to my head cause I don't want to constantly overwhelm myself with information. Thus using runes should be the best way to do so..... Ah..... How lovely runes are, I really can't fathom why people don't use it more often. Anyways moving on, in terms of political power, increasing it would be quite difficult as of now. If I were to try to just conquer all tribes in the Forest of Jura, I knew that that would lead to internal instability as even though monster follow the rule of "Survival of the fittest", if they were to be just conquered like that, they would eventually try and break free, maybe even try to kill me or my loved ones as revenge. Thus doing this meant that I had to constantly look over my shoulder and over time that would wear me down incredibly. The second way was through diplomacy but we're monsters so yeahh..... Even though every intelligent monster I met was either my village, the goblins and Veldora, I knew that every tribe had it's own innate pride, except for the goblins maybe, because of how weak they are. The prime examples are the dire wolfs that attacked the goblin village in the first few episodes. If it wasn't for their pride, they would have perhaps retreated after said attack failed, but they just pressed on and finally the leader got killed while the others got subjugated. Though I wonder how Rimuru was actually able to do so with what I just said, maybe cause of him naming them and developing something like a bond to them perhaps..... But even if that was true, I still couldn't do it since I lacked enough magicules to just give out names willy nilly. Maybe that will change in the future, but for now it was the case.

Meaning that force or diplomacy would fail unless faced with a threat unable to be dealt with alone. Which was the entire base of how the Jura Tempest Federation was formed in a nutshell. The orc lord was too strong too handle thus leading to everyone banding together to deal with their whole army, then after securing victory forming an alliance and leading to a whole country, in a nutshell. This made me think that maybe when the time comes, I could use Rimuru in a way and form the alliance like that, then changing it from being ruled by a king to a council, including Rimuru and a few others I could trust. Then maybe becoming a demon lord and increasing my influence further this way. Yepp, for now, this could make due. But the main thing is that I have to grow stronger cause even after all I said, personal power will still be the most important thing. Since only with power can I truly protect those I love, starting with this village.....