After getting Darwin settled in with Rubert and his world, it was all smooth sailing from there.
Rubert allocated an area free to use for Darwin that he can do anything he wants without inconveniencing the inhabitants.
Rubert went back to his endless extrapolation.
But this time he did so with more personal involvement in the affairs of his own creations. He had now become the creator god of his world and the rest of the gods that act as the Primum mobiles are now serving him directly.
Darwin is now considered an alien god that is a friend of Rubert.
Darwin, now moved out of the astral clocktower, had decided to use his genetics to replicate himself and create majin species that he was created from. And thus sprung the launch of a new intelligent monsters civilization.
With that all sorted out, I decided to leave them be. I left the newly constructed spiritual dimension and found myself in the cosmos looking at the spiral pillar under going continuous construction.
Rubert had begun to colonize extinct planets devoid of life with an army of droids and extracting the left over resources that were there.
I was now sure that there wouldn't be anymore issues with Rubert and frankly with Darwin as well.
I had now dealt with the issue that had plagued this colossal machine and could return to whatever is currently happening in tempest.
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I appeared from a portal and found myself under the night sky in a meeting that was going on with tempest officials, "What did I miss?"
Everyone was surprised by my sudden entrance and Rimuru stepped up to explain, "Well long story short, we made an alliance with Milim."
"And let me guess, everyone is making you do the work despite your protest and now you're really unhappy about having such work dumped onto you but don't have the balls to say all this frustration out loud? How much of that was correct?" I said all in one breath.
Rimuru was stunned, not only by my bluntness but also the fact that I had guessed everything right, "Uh…so aside from the fact that I was kinda forced into it, do you think that becoming allies with Milim was a good thing?"
"Well I wouldn't have left you alone with her if I didn't think it was a good idea. Milim isn't inherently evil nor destructive, she's just impulsive. In truth she is incredibly nice and recent events tell me that she's actually trying to change."
The others took my words in. Rimuru seemed to relax a bit.
" Um, lord Simon?" Benimaru spoke up which I turned my attention towards him, " How will Milims influence have an effect towards other demon lords attitude towards us?"
" The ten demon lords huh, I guess that's a fair concern but for most of them they probably don't care about it. There are three that you have too be concerned about."
" Three?" Rimuru asked.
" Yes three, well actually there's only one you have to worry about. There is the beast master Carrion and the sky Queen Frey but they are fairly nice and honestly you could probably make easy alliances with them. But the last is the puppet master Clayman and he is just a dick."
" What makes him so bad?" Rigurd asked.
" Clayman, as his name suggest, uses others without any regard for morality. He simply uses and discards them as he pleases all so that he can get as much power as possible."
The rest of the group took my words in with a bit of disgust for the individual I was describing, "…but there is a positive to making him your enemy."
Rimuru: "Huh, what positive is that?"
" If we were to factor overall power, whether it comes to their military or Clayman own power, I'd say his the weakest of the demon lords. I'm pretty sure that the reason that the other demon lords haven't killed him or evicted him from the demon lords council is contempt, they don't see him as worth the kill."
There was a moment of silence everyone settled back into leisure with my reassurance.
But Rimuru was restless about something and wanted to ask something, " Simon, can I ask you something? Every time I talk about you to Milim, she seems to always get extremely afraid, what is it that you did to her?"
I gave a Rimuru a long glare, so long that Rimuru and everyone fell into nervousness, " I'd prefer to not say, it's not something that I'm particularly proud of."
Rimuru was now confused about this aswell as impatient, he wanted to get close to both Milim and Simon but there seemed to be a barrier Infront of them both that prevented this kinda closeness.
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Rimuru's desire to get close to Simon might have looked like an attempt to gain the power and protection of a god.
But an otherworlder who has a theatrical flair, makes comical cliches from pieces of fiction and basically likes he same fictional genres that he does, Simon was like a kindred spirit in an unfamiliar world.
Yet he always seemed at armslength and avoided getting too close for some reason. Currently Simon was carrying me on his shoulder to my home, "Simon, you know that you can trust me right."
I looked to my shoulder, "Rimuru, the reason I don't tell you these things isn't because I don't trust you but because one, these are things that I don't want anyone to know and two, some things really have zero relevance or importance."
"So, you'll tell me about stuff in the future?" Rimuru's voice sounded hopeful almost desperate.
"… Rimuru, I am allowed to have secrets but that doesn't diminish the trust I have for you. I still am and always will be your friendly neighbourhood god, and that is a promise."
Rimuru was satisfied at the very least, "So what do you intend to do now?"
"Take you home and make grilled cheese. Doesn't that sound nice for a friend?"
From Rimuru's gelatinous body came a thumbs up.
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I set up a stove and pan and began making grilled cheese. Rimuru transformed into human form and watched as I had put in a weird combination of spices into it.
I put it in a plate and slid it in front of him which he had a very weary face, " Just try it, you'd be surprised how a random concoction can surprise you."
Rimuru looked at my innocent smile and bit down into the bread. His mouth went alight with a hot but sweet burn, the grilled cheese flooded his mouth with a sweet and spicy tang.
" This is amazing!" Rimuru was appalled by this burst of flavour, now he realized that Milim wasn't kidding when she said Simon was an amazing chef.
"That wasn't bad now, was it?" Simon gave Rimuru a smile that was so bright, it quite literally blinded him.
Another thing that surprised Rimuru was, how in the hell did the spicyness bypass his thermal fluctuation resistance, is this the power of a god?
" Ok, I'm staying here for the night."
" Wait what?" Rimuru was flabbergasted by this, he didn't mind but it was just so sudden of a declaration.
After they both finished their grilled cheese, instead of Simon getting his own room, he began cuddling Rimuru's slime form and fell into REM sleep.
"HEY! You couldn't have fallen asleep so fast!" Rimuru protested, trying to manuever out of my grasp yet felt an invisible wall block him.
"Just fall asleep, we both men in mind, I wouldn't do anything invasively inappropriate." I said while keeping my eyes closed and ignoring his squirming.
With that, Rimuru attempted to get out more but found that he couldn't escape. Rimuru gave in and went to sleep.
A lowly slime lay peaceful in the arms of chaos and entropy