(3rd pov)
Laplace teleported into Kagali's office with a letter. Ever since she had met Rimuru she had become the head of the guild. She would soon move the headquarters to Tempest and was beginning to make preparations.
The guild was an incredible source of income, people would pay for quests and the guild would keep a portion of that payment when giving the rewards to adventurers. And since missions went all of the way up to becoming personal protectors of kingdoms during monster attacks the amount of gold the guild brought was quite big. In truth the guild, while it was quite a new creation, had greatly helped with the economy of Englisia.
There were still people searching for Yuuki but the search was beginning to slow down as time passed. With no new clues, it would mean a waste of the country's wealth for someone who is already probably dead.
Now that Kagali was the leader she had a lot of new responsibilities yet she did her best at maintaining the guild and helping its power expand. After all, the souls of all of 30,000 of her people were at stake. Since the day that she had spoken with Rimuru she had learned that the souls used to create the Jesters could be separated to resuscitate the people who had been used as sacrifices. And she knew that soon the kingdom of Jistav would see a new glory.
"I've got a delivery for ya," Laplace said as he entered the room. "Boss told me you would like what's inside"
"Thank you Laplace."
Opening the letter she began to read, and once she finished, she stood up with a smile and said.
"Get ready to go, what we have been waiting for will happen soon."
"Do ya mean…"
"Yes, call Tear and Footman. We all have to go to Jistav soon."
....
Across all of the western nations, a rumor had begun to spread.
"Did you hear someone ruthlessly attacked Tempest?"
"Yes, I heard they tried to destroy everyone inside of it. It doesn't matter what your race was, not even if you were just passing through. They were planning on killing them all."
"Do you think it was some kind of bandit? What kind of monster would slaughter an entire city? Maybe it was another person trying to take the Emperor of Tempest's title of demon lord."
"Did you hear what happened to the citizens? Apparently, they all got a message from someone with a friendly voice and they were teleported to safety. And after the attack was done everyone who wanted to go back was teleported safely."
"That Rimuru guy is really cool! I heard that when they all were teleported back the citizens were already working on restoring the city, and none of them appeared to be hurt."
"He must be a really good guy. My buddy told me that he saw him walking around helping out here and there on a few days. Apparently, he gave them the same vibes as Masayuki. Like that Rimuru guy is meant to be a hero."
"Wait, wasn't Masayuki supposed to be heading to Tempest? What happened to him?"
"My friend told me that they never saw him getting to Tempest. My friend did say he found a guy that looked exactly like him, but he was just an ordinary dude."
"Oh man, I would love to look like Masayuki. Imagine how much money I could make to pretend to be him at parties."
The conversation began to trail off but one thing was for certain. The partial activation of the skill chosen hero and then full activation after the battle against Granbell was beginning to show its effect. And thanks to that skill the opinion of the people in the western nations was improving by leaps and bounds. And that was only after a short exposure to it.
The "Heroic" act of Granbell had been labeled as just some random monster trying to become a demon lord. To the world the actions that Tempest had taken were admirable. And soon enough more and more people began to spread the rumor and paint a heroic picture in their heads. A fact that would help greatly once Diablo's plan for conquest began.
....
(1st Pov Rimuru)
Ciel had informed me that it was about to happen so I had spent the last couple of days focusing on them. Now that I had grown way stronger their growth had also increased.
"Are you sure it is almost time?" Shuna asked next to me.
And at that moment the cocoons all around me began to break.
The first to emerge was Maimai the mantis. He had green hair and two antennae on his head. He had a humanoid face with red eyes. He created clothing on his body with a spell and emerged the rest of his body from the cocoon. He had two black-colored humanoid hands and his legs remained in a bug-like state.
(image here)
He revealed a goofy smile and said.
"I won first place!"
The gigantic Spider silk cocoon next to him began to shake and a fist cut right through it. The beautiful face of a woman with silver hair and red eyes popped out.
(Image here)
"Damn it, second place." Silk said.
Spider's legs broke through opening a large enough hole for her to exit. She had the upper body of a human but the lower body of a spider. A race that is more commonly known as an Arachne. She looked at Maimai before saying.
"Looking good dude!" she said while giving him a thumbs up.
"Wanna see this neat trick"
She turned the spider underneath her to human legs and landed on the ground softly.
"You are not the only one that knows transformation anymore"
She tried to take a step in the unfamiliar legs before falling on her face. After being used to walking on eight legs, having to balance on two was an unfamiliar feeling. She brought back the spider legs and stood back up again.
"Might need to practice that a bit more."
A few moments later another cocoon began to shake and it broke to reveal a woman wearing what appeared to be a bee's helmet, this was Apito. She had a completely humanoid shape and it appeared as if she was wearing thin exoskeleton armor all around her body.
(image here)
"So I am third… I am surprised that Zegion wasn't the first to come out"
Jouzu was the fourth to come out. His body was fully covered by a dark exoskeleton. He had four arms and he had a thin yet sharp straw-like mouth. It was almost as if shadows were enveloping his body. He also had two pairs of wings on his back.
(Image here)
Jouzu didn't say much and only looked to the cocoon in the middle of the room that had yet to open. And just after that, it started to dissolve, revealing Zegion.
He had a horn on his forehead and a black exoskeleton that covered his body. The tip of his horn was dyed red and so was the orb in his stomach. He had a yellow orb in his chest and he was completely hiding his aura.
As he left the cocoon he disappeared from his location and appeared in front of me.
"I apologize for not being ready when the attack happened."
"Don't worry about that Zegion. In fact, I am glad that you didn't come out earlier than necessary and finished your evolution properly."
The moment all of them had finished their evolutions a small celebration started on the floor we were on. They had all worked very hard and they had finally shown the fruits of their work. All of them had grown tremendously in power.
I had spent a lot of time since they started their evolution in helping them grow stronger. And now they could give a proper fight to most of the strongest here in Tempest. Once they got used to their new forms they would be practically unstoppable.
I wanted to have a small spar with them but I held off for now.
"Soon Hinata, Hakuro, Veldora, and eventually I will be your teachers. We are in the process of building better training for the people in Tempest so you all will also be able to use that in the future."
"Is Hinata also going to come back to Tempest?" asked Souka
"Yeah, she wanted to fight some more with Veldora and she also wanted to teach the kids. But really I am pretty sure she just enjoys all the commodities and food we have in here. Since Luminous gave her permission she is free to come and go as she pleases.
Plus Luminous is also sending her to help out as an apology for what happened with Granbell. He was supposed to be under her supervision but he had sneaked out to fight us. He even sent some of his troops to distract Luminous during the attack, which resulted in their deaths by her hands. She was pretty mad since she was in the middle of organizing for when Chronoa is woken up.
"Does that mean you are going to teach us more skills personally?" Maimai asked
Silk nodded as if she was a wise old man and said.
"Yes, with our connection I like training with you the most."
"I also want to show my progress to you." Apito jumped out with excitement.
Jouzu and Zegion remained quiet but I could feel their excitement for training again with me. IT appeared that Jouzu saw Zegion as a role model, and since Zegion was always pretty quiet, he was trying to imitate him.
"Well, I can't wait to see how much you have grown in the future. I have some things I have to do before but once I am back we can train all you want." I said while giving them some thumbs up.
"Also, you guys do know that you are free to wander around the city right? You all have stayed here most of the time, but I have put a lot of work in the city so I hope that you will all be able to enjoy it."
The small celebration continued for a while. Silk kept on changing to her human legs but she seemed to have horrible balance in that form. She was looking at Zegion, Jouzu, and Apito that seemed to walk so effortlessly like that and she also wanted to be able to walk like them.
It was a bit like they all had a sibling rivalry as to who would be able to do something the best. Maimai was happy with his four legs though, so even if he could transform using shapeshift he stayed in his normal form.
I was able to spend some time with all of them, and now I only had one thing left to do before heading to Jistav. I could probably send someone else to take care of it but I just wanted to get it done.
The last thing to do was dealing with the Greedy one.