Chapter 24

"Ah, life is good..."

"You certainly are carefree aren't you."

"Don't sweat it too much, nothing important is happening anytime soon."

I chuckled as I brought the tea cup to my lips, savoring the bittersweet blend that Shizu had just finished brewing.

Ever since the trio left, a good month had passed since then and Shizu has comfortably settled in to the small town we were slowly creating.

I even had the liberty to enjoy lazing around while enjoying the simply lavish life of having Shizu to spend time as she accepted her role of housewife with the things such as serving me tea and helping out Rigurd from time to time.

"Did you think of something ridiculous just now,"

Shizu asked with a glare, trying to make out anything strange from my reply but I had learn the very important skill of faking it till you make it from my predecessor.

"I don't know what you're talking about." I declined all the accusations and simply returned to savoring my drink.

It doesn't take a genius to know that I shouldn't blurt out all of my fantasies in front of the woman that were at the center of those fantasies, she might not be able to kill me but I'd be damned if she'd stop serving me tea.

I don't even know if she got weaker or stronger...

I stared silently at Shizu who was simply filling out papers, ideas to give Rigurd and the dwarves in helping them out build the future Tempest capital.

With the past month, nothing noteworthy happened and so there was no reason for the two of us to fight so it was impossible for me to assess if she got stronger or weaker.

Normally you'd think she'd be weaker since I removed her pact with Ifrit but she was connected to me, and in short, connected to Veldora.

Can she handle that much power?

She might have to evolved to a spiritual life form in the future when I become a demon lord but I had no idea what she was fully capable of at the moment.

Well, we'll find out soon.

"It's almost time for them to arrive, right?" Shizu asked, stashing the papers to the side to drink her tea.

I nodded, "yeah, they should be arriving." I replied with a smirk and made a flame hover in front of my palms.

I was of course, mastering flame control that I had gotten from ifrit and trying to turn my elemental spells to their black variant by using Veldora's magicules.

It took me an entire month and I was disappointed that there wasn't any fruition to my struggles, almost as if the world was against me getting stronger.

Or... I'm just impatient, but it's whatever.

Focusing and redistributing the magicules to my elemental spells required a ton of meticulous effort and time, but hopefully something will happen sooner than later.

I say that, but judging from how things are going...

A heavy sigh escaped my lips causing Rigurd who had been sitting with us to panic and immediately pour me another cup of tea.

"Apologies Rimuru-Sama, I hadn't noticed your cup was already empty."

"Huh? Oh, don't worry about it."

I eyed Rigurd cautiously as he stared at me a little bit too intensely for my liking. In fact, almost everyone in the entire community looked at me in a different light than it was described in the original series.

They would have looked at Rimuru with great respect to the possibility they were worshiping him, but there was no doubt that they were currently worshipping me, perhaps even more compared to what the original was.

"Uh, Rigurd..."

"Yes! Rimuru-sama!"

He answered in a loud, boisterous voice. Me and Shizu looked at one another, her eyes staring deeply into my soul in an unamused gaze as if she was saying.

This is your fault, deal with it.

As she continued to sip her cup of tea. Another sigh escaped my lips and gently patted Rigurd's back, or so I should have but the moment my hand touched his skin, he immediately jumped backwards and kneeled in front of us.

"Please give me your orders Rimuru-Sama, I will do everything you wish!"

Look man, I'm not some tyrant!

Is what I wanted to say but I won't deny that may have been how they saw me. Or atleast they saw me as a cunning and meticulous ruler with how I managed things.

Not only did I appoint 4 goblin lords under Rigurd, but I had also naked a couple of other monsters that were roaming around in the forests.

Creatures such as Zegion and Apito were a given, tho I gave them my blood instead of some form of slime to heal them, but I had also named some monsters known as the giant toads in order to form of some sort of naval force in the future.

I didn't stop with the giant toads, even the knight spiders inside the cave. I had a rough time in handling them so I thought they'd make an awesome fighting force in the future, so I knocked one out and forced it to be subservient to me by punching it until it surrendered.

That might have what set off their fear but... what else was I supposed to do!?

And so, not only were we gonna receive a ridiculous amount of silk from the newly evolved spiders, I had also made a force to he reckoned with within the forest, which I admit was a pretty bad move.

I hope guy doesn't notice me...

I looked over at Shizu and she was still staring at me with an exasperated stare which really drove in the wedge of guilt on my conscience.

Urgh... I got too carried away with power.

Sooner or later, Guy will notice that I was disrupting the balance of power and might even make a move against me.

"Right, that just means I have no choice but to get stronger!" I declared with a smirk and stood up, facing the tent's entrance where smoke could be seen from the distance.

"And looks like my second in command has arrived."

"..."

"...Third."

Women are scary