I woke up finding myself lying in my temporary tent and hearing some noises outside.
"uhh, looks like rimuru brought me here after the fight."
Ahh!! That's right, I hurriedly checked my condition and was pleasantly surprised. The body has adapted to my spirit and it won't take long before it fully stabilizes.
I can easily move now and suprisingly I feel that my mental processes are quite faster and smoother now. maybe it is the new body or having no need to allocate a portion of my focus into stabilizing my form.
On that note I can use Magic sense easier now that I can process the information much faster, so I shifted my attention to my appearance .
Thankfully my appearance hasn't changed much although my features softened a little, and my hair has become quite long, still the same black color but with a slight sheen.
Most importantly my manhood was safe, I was quite distressed knowing that rimuru became genderless when he is in human form. I had surrendered this matter to fate but fortunately my spirit was strong enough to force the change.
There were also some changes to the color of my eyes They were dark brown before but after being named by veldora they changed to a shade lighter in color, and now after occupying this body they became hazel brown shifting to gold at the edges.
I have discussed this before with rimuru and we hypothesized that the ones who got veldora's blessing by naming directly or indirectly will have golden eyes like him, this happened to rimuru and Ranga''s eyes too, transforming form blood red to golden, and now me.
As I was checking myself out when I sensed someone approaching the tent, Turns out it was gobta coming with a message.
"Hey, Sir Raiden, Sir Rimuru calls you out to join the celebration outside"
"Alright, Thanks Gobta, I am coming"
I looked around the tent and thankfully rimuru remembered to put some clothes for me as the ones he made with the body were destroyed in the battle.
I came out of the tent wearing a simple shirt and pants, I went to the gathering place in the center of the village where I found rimuru sitting around a bonfire and eating. On my way there I found some new faces, If I am not wrong they should be ogres, but what are they doing here?
"Hey Raiden, come enjoy the feast, the food is suprisingly delicious!" exclaimed rimuru when he saw me coming.
"Alright, I will gorge myself on food tonight, but looks like there are some guests?"
I inquired when I saw a bunch of ogres joining in the festivities although some of them looked gloomy.
I enjoyed the food I haven't tasted since coming here while listening to what happened after I fell asleep. the flavoring was a worry for me earlier, but they had taken the juice from assorted types of fruit to make a sauce. The promotion to hobgoblin status must've upgraded their palates, too, and they were now experimenting with all sorts of new recipes.
This magical beast was cowdeer, I was told, Well cooked, it was tasty enough even without any extra spices or such, but adding some fruit to the mix did wonders to mask the gamy flavor. and complete a wonderful bite.
I was quite suprised the the rimuru said that he found the village under attack by the ogres when he left the cave
There was quite the misunderstanding when rimuru showed up wearing shizu mask as thier village was attacked by orcs and leading them was a masked majin.
They got into a brief fight and when rimuru overpowered them, he explained the situation to them. "...and so here we are. The misunderstanding was solved but there might be more trouble happening in the area of The Jura Forest soon." rimuru explained the situation and the possibility of an aggressive force in the area.
All is well for now I suppose we decided to sit and hash things out with the ogres the next day.
Tonight however, we enjoyed the the roast-meat feast and drank through the evening.
The next day, We chose the log house built atop the recently burned-out public square in the center of the village.
Mildo, youngest of the three dwarf brothers, had done a great job crafting it from the basic sketch that was drawn on a plan of wood. Apparently with the help of rimuru's great sage he could draw accurate blueprints several modern buildings.
The ogres were guided to the house's reception room. They meekly followed behind, eagerly looking around the house like it was a novelty. There was zero decoration yet, so I don't know what enthralled them so much.
The reception room had a large table, along with a few simple stools encircling it. We were all gathered there—Rimuru, Rigurd, the four goblin lords, and Kaijin the dwarf as a mediator. Fourteen in all, counting me.
Everyone gathered as we figured the ogres had some important things to tell us. If something was happening to the Forest of Jura, it'd come to our doorstep soon enough.
Tea was served and for the first time I can taste it now, The ogres seemed to enjoy it as well. We waited for them to settle in before we began to talk.
The discussion was started by asking why they were there in the first place. They replied that they were fleeing in order to regroup and rally themselves. That, in itself, was disquieting. I had a feeling this would go on a while.
If there was a force out there that could defeat ogres, we had a threat on our hands. These were B-ranked creatures, according to yesterday's battle description. And these guys were the elites of their race. Masters of the forest. The highest class of monster you'd find here, I was told.
To sum up the ogres' story…
There was a war, and the ogres lost. That was about it.
While We were busy fending off Ifrit at this village, the ogres were getting involved in a war of their own. Who on earth could challenge the most powerful race in the Forest of Jura to war—and win? It sent a thrill of tension across everyone in the room. Their faces tightened with concern.
"They attacked our homeland out of nowhere," the red-hair ogremuttered angrily. "Their power was overwhelming… Those hideous pigs, those orcs !!"
It was an army of them, apparently. And unlike humans, monsters never thought about formally declaring war before having at it. So while the ogres didn't decry the surprise attack in and of itself, orcs attacking them was far from the norm.
Why? Simple: the difference in strength. Orcs were D-ranked creatures. Stronger than goblins, but nothing a veteran adventurer would lose sleep over. Ogres, remember, were two grades higher than that, rendering a one-on-one battle eminently predictable. And yet, the weak challenged the strong, and they won.
The ogres' home was a fair bit larger than our own village—an informal collection of clans, which together formed a kind of battle-fort home to three hundred. About as powerful as a small nation's knight corps, in other words—a force equivalent to a three-thousand-strong army of fighters trained to B-minus monster status.
These ogres lived a life you could describe as militaristic. The clans held battle training with one another on a regular basis, occasionally joining this or that side to assist other races when they fell into conflict with their neighbors. Some of the clans had even made their mark on history, forming vanguard forces of an army for one demon lord or another, and these ogres were descended from them.
In other words, They lived as de facto mercenaries. And the ogres of this world were quickly destroying the image we once had from fantasy novels. But that wasn't the issue. They had been defeated by far weaker monsters, and it looked like they were all still in shock—for in this reception room, we were looking at the sole survivors of the entire settlement.
The red-haired one had taken his sister, the princess, away from the place while their leader was spearheading a team to defend them from the orcs. She was nobility, after all, a sort of ogre shamaness, and her people put her ahead of everything else in their lives.
"If only I were stronger…," the red-hair groaned. The last thing he saw was the orcs, clad in black armor, delivering the final blow on his leader. A giant orc, one that let off an eerie aura. And one other, a figure who didn't bother to hide their own brutally dark aura; one who wore a mask that looked a bit like an angry clown.
"It was one of the magic-born people, I am sure of it," the shamaness declared. "A high-level one. I'm afraid my brother never stood a chance."
"Indeed," the elder added. "We jumped to conclusions about all of you because we saw that fiend in action. We thought you were one with them."
That was quite the coincidence, rimuru had just put the mask the cover his leaking magicules, in the end he was suspected to be an accomplice of a clown masked majin.