Branching Roads

Allow me to summarize the current situation in the Jura Tempest Federation, as of three days after Rimuru and Mary's departure.

Milim Nava, one of the strongest and oldest Demon Lords (according to every source of information I've drawn on), has left Tempest alone for an unknown amount of time.

Essentially, "I'll tell the Demon Lord Council that Tempest is of no concern" were her parting words.

It's been a couple months now since then, and no word has come back.

Given her fondness of Tempest and Rimuru, and her relatively irresponsible demeanor, I find it unlikely she has remained away for so long simply to manage her own duties as a Demon Lord. Then again, who knows how well a thousand-year-old being keeps track of time? Perhaps she simply doesn't understand a century-long time scale.

Logically, this is sound. In practice?

I doubt this is the case. It seems far more likely that something else is keeping her away. Milim giving up the best cooking she's ever experienced in thousands of years? No, I don't believe that for a moment.

The how and why is yet to be seen, but everything I know about her means I have no reason to believe she'd willingly stay away for any significant period of time. Especially not with how much she seems to love her "bestie".

But, out of sight out of mind, as they say. Milim, for the moment, is not my primary concern.

The Jura Tempest Federation has become temporarily leaderless. This is of the utmost importance right now. Rimuru Tempest has left for the Kingdom of Ingrassia, accompanied by newly appointed Executive Mary Sue, Ranga, one of Souei's body doubles, and the mediocre human adventurer trio of Eren, Gido, and Kabal.

I've more than made my thoughts known on this. I won't return to them now. That's in the past.

What matters now is keeping the Federation running while it's king-figure is away.

Not an easy task, but not the hell one might expect.

The work that used to solely go to Rimuru has been disseminated among various Executives. On paper, this might appear as though everyone's workload has increased dramatically. In practice, most of Rimuru's duties were handled by the Executives already. Delegation at its finest, and I'm more than thankful that such systems and channels of information and work were already mostly preestablished.

The change introduced was simply one of increased specialization. Hakurou, Benimaru, and Rigur are fully focused on developing and maintaining Tempest's defense. Shuna, Rigurd, and the Golbina known as Ririna work together to manage Tempest's economic, domestic, and foreign affairs alonside its production. Not respectively, but all together.

Souei spreads his information network ever further with the help of Souka and the rest of his subordinates. Kurobe and Kaijin remain hard at work in the forges, and Vesta moves forward with his experiments.

Oh, and Treyni manages her bar with occasional assistance from her sisters Trya and Triss.

Everything is taken care of.

…except for the paperwork – though "wooden tablet work" is more accurate due to genuine paper's continued rarity – that Rimuru usually handled every day. For the time being, I've taken to managing this aspect of Tempest's leadership, alongside my official Executive role as Tempest's Head of Intelligence and my occasional advisory roles everywhere else barring the forge.

My work never ceases, does it?

This is the problem with being a good worker. Sure, under good management you're properly compensated for your extra – and extraordinary – contributions, but at the same time you're endlessly dooming yourself by setting such a high expectation. You'll soon find yourself performing far above your paygrade.

Though, if you were to argue the one more fit for paperwork between Rimuru and I, or indeed the one most fit for such work in the entirety of Tempest, well, the answer is fairly obvious.

With that in mind, it's hard for me to complain. The right one for the right job, and all that.

Luckily, in spite of this extra workload, it's been a relatively simple transition.

Shion has been assisting me, in essentially the same role she held as Rimuru's secretary. Delivering tablets, ferrying messages, cooking when no one wants her too, walking around the city and checking on its various residents…

She's surprisingly competent when she wants to be, though more often than not I find myself wishing my old, consistently competent adjutant was assisting me instead. My own coffee brewing still hasn't quite reached her level, after all.

Ah, have I been feeling more nostalgic lately? How odd.

No time think about it, really, so I won't bother.

If Shion keeps this semi-competence up, I might just put in a good word for her with Rimuru. They're similar brands of idiots, so they might fit well, assuming Rimuru's drunken "experience" hasn't inclined them towards more petite- ah, but there's not time for idle speculation on that end either.

The point. Right, the point.

Everything is under control. Tempest is at peace.

For now.

It's true that nothing has come knocking directly on our doors since Charybdis was vanquished. Further, any inklings of shady dealings and secret preparations hasn't reached the ears of Souei's net. But that doesn't mean there won't be more upstarts and antagonists in the future.

The incident in Xerxes proves that well enough. The best we can do is be on guard. To enjoy this peace while it lasts and prepare for its inevitable end with all our might.

I… admit this next piece freely.

I'm more than a bit tired of conflict. Was that obvious?

It's not like me to say this, but… perhaps I'll try a little optimism this time and hope for this peace to remain indefinitely. Shuna would like that. Mary would appreciate it.

Is that what I've been trying to reach? I'm sure. The peace that follows this journey of mine, spanning three worlds, three vastly different lives.

.

.

.

.

.

…when will I finally reach that end?

-=-=-=-

Late Morning

Unmarked Facility

Kingdom of Ingrassia

Trouble was brewing in the depths of the Kingdom of Ingrassia.

In the depths, or rather deep beneath that massive meandering sprawl of magically fantastical human civilization, an expanse chamber spread wide. A single, overwhelming room safe and hidden from prying eyes by several tens of meters of earth and underground infrastructure.

A massive rectangle of a chamber, 100 square meters one way and half that the other by the closest approximation – near enough an American football field in length and half it in width, you might say – and tall enough to house that field's bleachers as well. Columns, carved plainly for use rather than appeal, lined the room lengthwise, supporting the entire structure.

Oddly similar to a certain other underground chamber back in another city, but who's to say what inspired whom?

It was dark in this place. Dim, more accurately, as lights shone from an unseen source down the length of the room, leaving the edges of the area just past the columns shadowed and blank to the eye. Dark curtains of shade lined the area beyond those walls, impenetrable to ordinary sight and light.

It was almost… a glitch, in a way. A trick of perspective and lighting, an impossibility of the eye. As if, within those shadows lay something purely beyond ordinary perception. As if, such perception was wrong.

Incomprehensible without consequence.

In the center of this chamber was a large, circular pit of sand. A miniature arena, a small gladiator's paradise. And in this arena stood a man.

He was a man. Once, in another world.

Ah.

Or... had it all been a dream?

The one known of Drake of Scylla had long since abandoned any notion of humanity. This was a being who existed solely for his own whims, his own desires. He was the monster, nay, the one that would become the strongest, the one that would dismantle every power structure above and below that thought they could control the world and stand atop them all as their better.

He'd be the one to finally put the boot to those fakers, those sub-perfect beings that called themselves Demon Lords. Guy Crimson's corpse would serve as his steppingstone, and he would take his rightful place on top of the world.

He who was not human would stand atop humanity and claim him and them above all.

Even if he had to burn everything and everyone else to ashes in the process.

Above even the True Dragons. Perhaps… above Veldanava himself.

Between the Heavens and the Earth, there would be none more honored than Drake of Scylla, Pinnacle of Humanity, God of Soul, the King of Spirits. Such was the ambition of this being who was once a man, not quite a monster, yet fully one lone being of his own making.

And yet…

And yet… that woman… that woman ruined everything.

A crash of steel. A mutual snarl of being and beast. Sparks hissing, fading in the sand dominating the chamber's center. Crimson splotches and pitch black tendrils splashing against those golden grains.

Everything.

His hard work… his friends, allies, projects...

My dream.

He dropped to a crouch, his golden spear singing a requiem as it swept out his opponent's legs.

The beast, long arms past its waist dripping shadow and blood from wicked length claws, gnashed its teeth in primal, instinctual fury. The creature – a bipedal wolf on first glance and something more, something wrong, something that was no longer its initial form upon further staring – fell with the sweep, uncaring, slashing out with a mangled, clawed appendage resembling a hand.

Drake grunted, falling to his back in the sand and receiving a gash across his cheek for his trouble, rather than losing both his eyes had he remained crouched in place. The beast fell next to, then onto him for but a moment, before he kicked up with both feet, launching the bastardized amalgamation of a creature high into the air.

He flipped to his feet, wrenching his arm forward, up, his spear a golden blur as it left his hand, rocketing towards his unwillingly airborne foe. The beast reached the apex of its ascent, gravity taking hold and pulling towards its demise.

But not yet.

It wrenched its body to the side, the spear slipping past, clipping away a few narrow strands of errant shadow as it shot by. The beast groaned, low and unnatural, and stared at the ground, claws stretching out.

If such a thing could feel confusion, it did in that moment. Drake was no longer on the ground.

Something slammed into the creature's back.

Drake, as if teleporting, appeared by his spear the very instant it missed its mark, catching it and flipping it around in one motion. Gravity took him as well, and he descended, his spear flashing down, through the beast's back then chest with little resistance.

They plummeted as one, impaled and Impaler, a howl of pain and fury from each other's lips. Then, they landed.

FWOOOM!

A wave of sand burst up around then, the shockwave of their impact rattling the immediate area and blasting away the chamber's stagnant, heated air. Some invisible thing stopped the disruption past a certain point, as though waves splashing up and back away from a coastal castle's formidable walls.

Only one of them stood. That being, the man who was not human, more beast than the one that had been felled.

The only article of clothing visible on him, a pair of short black shorts, was dusted with sand and slimy shadow. Sand clung to his skin, sweat and cursed, blackened blood dripping down muscular arms, torso, and legs.

"…Pathetic." Drake stood, brushing his soaked salt and pepper bangs back with one hand, and pulling his spear free from the beast's rapidly dissolving corpse with the other. He spat into the sand, disgusted.

Pathetic, pathetic, pathetic, this power of mine is just… Drake wiped roughly across his mouth, remnants of the crimson spittle clinging stubbornly to parts of his beard. I'm still far too weak.

"Your actions don't match your aspirations."

It wouldn't be enough. Not for her.

"Right now, I see a man with dreams that far surpass himself."

I must become stronger.

"You're going to become the greatest, and you're going to put Scylla on top of the world. Is that right?"

Yes. Yes, it is. That's right, Tasha… no, Tanya. Murderer of Eve, Nin Gen, Octavius Valentin. Bane of Scylla.

"You'll effectively be declaring war on the rest of the world. Are you willing to take on all challengers?"

Yes. I declare war on anyone who stands my way. I declare war on the world. On the Council, on the True Dragons, on the GODS.

A subsonic rumble shook the air's very atoms.

I declare war on you, Demon Lord Seed Tanya.

Hidden deep along the edges of the chamber, where the shadows grew long. The shade glitched, shattered, reformed, the verge of madness reaching all who dared looked for too long.

Something was not right in this place, in this darkness.

Behind the columns, a great weight could be felt, but not heard. It could be sensed, in the way that sweat drips down the back of one's neck. Inside that deep, instinctual fear hardwired into the genome from years, generations of being hunted.

It was a power of layers, dense and suffocating, that filled the shadows.

Among those layers, a piece of the darkness peeled away, for just a moment.

And out of it stared a lone, crimson eye.

Watching.

Back in the chamber's center, Drake stepped back to the middle of the mini arena proper, absentmindedly brushing away sand from his forearms and shoulders. As if they'd always been there, three beasts, mirror images of the previous one, stood opposite and around him, their fucked-up forms shaking with barely repressed primeval rage.

The arena repaired itself as if by magic, the sand spread everywhere returning and filling in until all was level and ready once more. Blood and shadow still dotted its surface, countless battles just like the previous having been fought today, and yesterday, and the day before.

Just as countless more would be fought tomorrow, and the day after, and beyond that as well.

I must become stronger. I'll do anything to achieve that. I'll never give in, not until your demise. Not until I see you choke in your own blood. Not until your world burns down around you, as mine did. Prepare heartily for your demise.

Drake settled into his stance. His body shifted, crouching and sliding half to the side. One hand settled near the spear's point and the other nearer the other end, the point itself angled toward the ground. His body flexed, his aura flaring.

He snarled, far away from human, "Begin!"

They darted forward as one-

-=-=-=-