"Wh-what is it? Did something happen?"
"Are you short on something?"
"Or…or it didn't work, then?"
The Dwarves were worried, seeing us coming out just a few minutes after getting started.
"Yeah, um…well, actually…" Rimuru sized up the dwarves, whose eyes were laden with worry. They hurt to look at.
"…Ha-ha! Just kidding! They're all done, actually!"
"""...Whaaaa?!"""
.
"""…Cheers!!"""
We were at a kind of dwarven nightclub, holding a rather anticlimactic wrap-up party. The weapons were safely in the king's hands, and it was time to celebrate. We didn't want to make a fuss at first but the dwarves were adamant.
"Aw, come on! There's lots of beautiful ladies in there!"
"Yeah, yeah! Young ones, and older, too, if you like a little weathering on 'em! It's the perfect place for any gentleman!"
"...!!"
"C'mon, Guys! We can't go out without you!"
We buckled under thier pressure, not that we were against the idea, they brought us to a place called night butterflies.
"Ooh, welcome!"
"""Welcome, sirs!"""
Well, They deserve their name, those clothes are as thin as a butterfly's wings, and some girls' ears were long, Are they really elves?
At least I Realized one of my fantasies here and it didn't disappoint, they were as beautiful as the rumors made them out to be.
"Oooh, look at you, cutie!"
"Aww, I saw him first!!"
Eeep! Boing! Boiiing!
Some of them picked up rimuru and hugged him, that lucky bastard, maybe reincarnating as slime is not bad after all.
"…Umm… I guess all that squirming means you're enjoying this, huh?"
"Huh…? N…no, not that much." replied rimuru unconvincingly.
Nobody will believe that buddy, On my side of things, The Elven girls while suprised by my spiritual form got over it quickly and began to ask about where I came from.
However, while we were enjoying ourselves…
"Well! If it isn't Kaijin! Goodness me, what are you doing, bringing this vulgar monsters into a high-class establishment like this?"
Who's that guy? He was provoking us out of nowhere. Things quickly fell silent around us. Even the girls sneered at this visitor—they must not have liked him too much, although they were polite enough to keep the scoffs very discreet.
By dwarf standards, this one was quite tall and thin in stature, making him…well, an average human in size.
"Hey! Boss! You guys allowin' monsters in here these days?"
"N-no," an older female manager called out, "but it's just a little slime and…"
"Uhh? It's still a monster! Ain't it? You sayin' a slime's not a monster anymore?!"
"I… No, sir, but…" The manager stuttered noncommittally, trying to calm the man down, but the boor wasn't even paying attention. Clearly, he was after us.
"Oh, great," one of the girls sighed. "That's Vester, the minister."
Well if it isn't the minister that has some conflict with the dwarves in our group.
He did seem like the kinda guy who refuses to let go of a grudge. I could see it on his face.
"Y'know what best suits a monster?" Vester bellowed. "This!" Then he emptied the contents of his water glass over rimuru.
Ahh This will be troublesome but if he is gonna keep acting like that I don't mind getting into trouble after beating him up, I doubt anyone can hold us here if we were bent on leaving.
As I was contemplating the consequences of kicking a minister's ass in his own country, kaijin snapped first.
"Hey… You think you can just pick on us all you want?!"
With an audible kick at the table, Kaijin stood up.
"You think you can run around and make fun of my guest, Vester? You think I'm not gonna mind that? You think?!"
He looks more angry than us at this point, I mean look at rimuru, he is still bouncing between the lady's chest.
"How…how dare you speak to me like that, you…!" Vester sputtered, still in shock.
"Will you shut up already?!" Kaijin shouted, accentuating his point by launching a punch at the minister's face. A few moments later, he asked, "Hey, Rimuru, you were lookin' for someone to help you, right? Would I be good enough, maybe?"
Well looks like he made up his mind and is leaving with us, I guess being oppressed for so long made him want to leave.
"That's what I've been wanting to hear. It'll be great working with you, Kaijin!"
It would be good to have him accompany us, this will solve most of our requirements.
So.
As anyone could imagine, punching a government minister in the face presented a number of issues.
"My brother, my brother," muttered Kaido, a few security officers behind him. "What did you do this time?"
He was on duty today—not even he could get away with skipping shifts all the time. Kaijin had given him an invite, but he'd refused…only to come to the nightclub anyway thanks to his brother's actions, We could've simply run away but we didn't want to leave behind any troubles that will come to bite us later.
"Hmph! That fool!" As four knights dragged Kaijin away, he shouted and pointed a wild finger at the minister. "He practically spat in the face of Rimuru, my client and the best patron I've ever had! What's so bad about putting him in his place a little, huh?!"
Vester, for his part, hadn't overcome the shock yet. He was simply staring at us, blood still dribbling from his nose. It looked both pathetic and a little comical. Never saw it coming, I guess. The surprise probably kept it from even hurting.
"Brother," Kaido whispered with a sigh, "you don't put a government minister 'in his place' like that… Either way, you're all coming with me!" He nodded to his men, then took us aside for a moment. "Just stay calm, all right? I promise we'll treat you well."
While we were taken away rimuru didn't forget to tip the manger "There's some for your trouble in there, too!" he said to the surprised matron. "We'll be back!"
It seems like rimuru liked tha place, he was enjoying himself afterall.
So went our second arrest here in the Dwarven Kingdom, wait aren't we forgetting gobta.
Gobta! He wasn't with us at the club. Instead, he was atoning for his sundry idiotic behavior by undergoing what rimuru liked to call "bagworm hell." he'd tied him up with Sticky Thread and let him hang from the ceiling.
"Wait!" he'd whined. "This is so mean, sir! I want to come with you!"
Rimuru 'd showed him no mercy this time. "Enough, you fool! I can't take any more of your blockheaded behavior! If you don't like it, summon your tempest wolf buddy and have him help you out!"
I don't think it is possible for him but, maybe he will give us a suprise.
The six of us were taken to the royal palace. Not that we were under very heavy guard. If anything, it seemed entirely voluntary.
We wound up having to spend around two days in the castle jail room. It wasn't so bad—the food looked decent, and we had all the comforts we needed in the place. It was less like a jail cell and more like an urban apartment shared by the six of us. We weren't treated too terribly,
"I just had to lose my temper, and now I've got all of you in here with me… I'm so sorry, guys!" Kaijin apologized.
But none of his dwarven friends minded too much, either.
"It's fine, Kaijin! No problem at all!"
"Yeah, don't worry about it, boss!"
"..."
"Besides, once we're released, we want to come with you, Kaijin!"
"Yeah, can we come with you?"
"...?"
As We looked at rimuru he eventually caught up with what they were saying and replied.
"Hah! Sure, we'll take care of all of you! You better be ready, though… Once we reach the village, you guys're gonna work!"
"Got it!"
We were already talking about life outside the big house. As prison terms went, it was pretty chill.
It was the night of our second day.
"By the way," it occurred to me to ask, "why did that minister have it in so badly for you, Kaijin? Was there some reason for it?"
Kaijin's expression immediately soured. With a sigh, he began to explain. It turned out he used to be a captain in the palace's royal knight corps—a leader of one of the seven armies making up the whole system. Three corps were devoted to behind-the-scenes work like engineering, supply, and emergency aid. Three more—heavy strikers, magic strikers, and magic support—played more of a starring role. The last one, and the most important, was the king's personal guard. Kaijin had been head of the engineering corps, and Vester had been his second-in-command.
"He was the son of a marquis," the dwarf moaned. "A noble title he bought with money. I think he must've been jealous of a commoner like me taking the head role. It was complicated, you know? It must've been humiliating to him, taking orders from someone below him. And I'll admit that I didn't care much about what other people thought about me. I was too busy trying to stay on the king's good side. That's when it happened."
Oh well some nobles and thier useless pride and kaijin story was a typical one, vesper made a mistake and shifted the blame on him.
"So," Kaijin concluded, "maybe he'll settle down a bit if I leave the country for a while."
He sounded a bit forlorn about it, but at least he had backup. The three brothers with us were just as aware of the truth, and there was no love lost for Vester among them, either. Hell, even I hated him now.
Still, Kaijin did sock a noble, so I kind of wondered whether they were just gonna release us or make trouble.
"I wouldn't worry about it," Kaijin reassured us. "I'm out of the army now, but I did make it up to the corps leader. As far as my social position goes, I'm just below baron. If it were strictly commoner versus nobleman in the courts, well, hanging might've entered the picture."
He accentuated that morbid fact with a hearty laugh.
Meanwhile, I just sat there. If things got rough we could just force our way out if rimuru transforms into a wolve and carries the bunch while I knock out anything in our way, with our speed few could catch up with us, this is a last resort though, I hope I doesn't come to this.