The sound of chopping trees and hammering echoed throughout the forest. Slowly, the new town and its houses were beginning to take shape. In our minds, at least. We were still busy laying out the water and septic system, so for now, it was still just a clearing.
I don't know how to feel about the town to be honest, I was just caught up in the flow and before I realized I was building a town with goblins, wolves, dwarves and last but not least a SLiME.
It not that bad to have a place to settle until I find a solution to the problem of my body and sword.
The crew was building several buildings, A temporary one a sort of gymnasium they could sleep in during construction. It was rather slipshod since It was temporary, but it would do the job.
Outlining the assorted neighborhood divisions was going along well. The upper-class houses, including the one I'd stay in, would be built near the cave mouth. We'd have a line of homes meant for the tribal elders, with the other residences spread out around them.
We were doing this before anything else, so it was easy to lay out the town plan without getting things cluttered and mixed up. It was basically built in the shape of a cross, with a wide main street, making it easy to traverse in groups.
I applauded rimuru for naming all the goblins and upgrade them into hobgoblins, though. It did wonders for their intelligence levels, and they were all astonishingly quick studies. Their strength was upgraded, too. The dwarves described regular goblins as straight-on F-ranked monsters, while hobgobs hovered between C and D for the most part. They felt more like people than they did before, to be sure. Depending on their weapons and armor, not to mention their classes and magical arts, there was a lot of room for growth.
On that note, I was seeing substantial variation in the hobgobs' sizes and strengths. The four goblin lords that had just bee n named, for one, all seemed more talented in life than the rank and file did. Rigurd the Goblin King, meanwhile…
"Oh, is that where you were, Sirs! I was searching for you!"
He was practically a muscle-bound freak of nature at this point, huge in frame and almost the size of an ogre. "Hell, larger, even!" as Kaijin put it. That must've been the result of giving him a class in addition to a name, I supposed.
The uniqueness of monster evolution is a mysterious phenomenon, Even assigning titles can bring this much change.
"What is it?" Rimuru asked
"I've come to report to you, sir. We've captured a few suspicious individuals."
"Suspicious? A bunch of monsters, or?"
"No, sir, humans. We did not engage them, as you ordered."
"Humans? Why here?" as rimuru asked I reminded him of the adventures we saw in the cave
"I think the disappearance of Veldora has far more reaching side effects than we expected, What were they doing Rigurd?"
"They were engaged in battle with a group of giant ants, it seems. Rigur and his security detail rescued them and took them here, but…apparently he suspects they are conducting an investigation of the local area. I thought I would come to you for advice…"
Hmm. Some country's checking out this place? I already knew from the dwarves that the Forest of Jura was considered neutral territory, unclaimed by any nation. It seemed plausible that this was an expeditionary force, trying to gather information. This could be troublesome, but there was no point fretting over it without hearing them out.
"All right. Take me to them!" Rimuru said as he hopped on Rigurd's shoulder and I followed behind.
As we made our way to see the adventures, I was wondering who they were when a conversation entered our ears.
"Wh-whoa! Hey! I wanted that!"
"That's just mean, isn't it? I raised this meat myself!"
"Sir, I regret to inform you that I am not giving up this food!"
"Munch, munch."
They are making some ruckus, that's for sure.
"…"
Rigurd replied to our silent question. "M-my apologies, It would seem the ants made off with most of their luggage…and even before then, they had not had a decent meal in some time, so I had some brought to them."
Hmm. That was kind of the goblin king, to be sure. "Oh, that's no problem," Rimuru replied. "In fact, good job noticing. Helping out someone in need is a nice thing, you know?"
"Ha-ha! I will do my best to improve my rule and be less of a burden upon you, Sir Rimuru!"
The moment we stepped in, I saw Four adventurers sitting on the ground, their mouths full of assorted meats and vegetables. Their eyes were wide open as they gawked at A slime of a hobgoblin shoulder. It was a hilarious sight to see, although they probably didn't realize it.
As I expected, three of the are the ones we passed by before in the cave, the last one was a new face, a new mask if I go by appearances.
"Munch, munch…"
They sat there for a moment, chewing. They sure were taking their time.
Fresh roasted meat…mmm. If only I had a sense of taste. Argh… Does anyone have some spiritual food here…?
As I was distracted, Rigurd walked up to a tall seat on one side and placed Rimuru upon it. "My guests," he bellowed as we sat next to him, "I do hope you are comfortable here. Allow me to introduce you to our master, Sir Rimuru and his friend Sir Raiden!"
I could hear them swallowing down their food. Then, in unison:
"""Huh? A slime and a Ghost?!"""
"Munch, munch."
All of them reacted with shock.
Well, I'm not sure about the masked one, actually. Whatever.
"It is good to meet you. I am Rimuru, a slime. Not a bad slime, you know!"
I heard a sputtering sound from under the mask. With all the food that guy was chewing, the results probably weren't pretty.
That Odd, why did that adventure react so much to rimuru statement, I don't know if is it for a slime talking? or something else, did she get the reference? .
As I was Introduceding myself to visitors, I tried to sense the masked adventure aura but it was repressed by something, that mask isn't a simple face cover, hope they don't bring trouble.
Well, pardon us, I guess. I just didn't expect we'd be saved by a monster tribe."
"Oh! We're human adventurers, by the way, and this meat is really good! We've been running for the past three days, I think, so it's been hard to eat much of anything… Thank you so much!"
"Yeah, thanks. I sure didn't expect some hobgoblins to be building a village around here."
"Urrp… Koff! Glug glug."
"Well," I said, "please, feel free to enjoy your meal, all of you. We can talk afterward"
Couldn't the goblins call us after they were stuffing themselves, I am quite envious here, rimuru was the same.
So We left the tent, not too interested in watching them eat on the floor, wondering which wind brought those human guests (or prisoners, depending). On the way out, Rimuru told their guard to take them to his personal gate near the cave once mealtime was over.
"Don't worry about it," Rimuru reassured the crestfallen-looking Rigurd as we walked. "We can work on manners later." They were, after all, growing by leaps and bounds. No one expects diplomatic effort to go perfectly with these hobgobs.
Settling down in rimuru's tent, we patiently wait. Rigurd had one of his female assistants prepare some tea for us. It looked more palatable than the last beverage they made, but I could only guess at the taste. Neat how evolution even affected areas like that.
After a few more moments, the four adventurers popped in, immediately giving a hearty "Sorry 'bout that!" as they entered. The tent was a little cramped with all of them inside.
Once their goblin guide was gone, another one brought out some fresh tea for the group. providing Real service, out of nowhere. They must've picked it up from the dwarves—I knew they had been spending nights drinking with them, learning about their society and culture.
"Ah, good to see you again. My name is Rimuru, and I'm the leader of this little group. What brings you guys over here?"
"I am glad to meet you, Rimuru. My name is Kabal, the leader of this band…more or less. This is Elen, and that's Gido over there. We're adventurers, all ranked B—you know what that means, I imagine?"
"Hi! Elen here!"
"Gido, sir. A pleasure."
So they are a party. Quite a high rank, given their looks, but they would've faced a rough time at the cave, Mabye they were good at hiding and there is that masked one she didnt look like a part of the group.
"This, meanwhile, is Shizu, a temporary addition to our team for this mission."
"Call me Shizu."
It was hard to tell her gender or age strictly from her voice. But I could tell right off—she was a woman. And, if my hunch was correct, maybe even Japanese? That was the impression I had.
The way she carried her teacup and the way she knelt just so, tops of her feet flat against the floor. That position, I thought, had to be rare in this realm, and her three companions certainly didn't bother—the men just sat cross-legged on the wolf-pelt rug over the ground, and Elen chose to keep her legs to one side instead.
Ah, well. It wouldn't be strange to have a culture somewhere on this this planet japan but, the way she reacted to rimuru's Dragon Quest Game Refrence was suspicious.