Published at 3rd of April 2019 10:15 am

Chapter 258: Side chapter - Rimuru’s Elegant Escape Play - 9

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The next morning, I was unconscious due to the pain all over my body.

The first thing I felt was that something was wrong with my back and legs.

Was it just me? I wondered, but then the piercing pain started to rush through me.

In the blink of an eye, it spread through my entire body, and not being able to bear it any longer, I woke up.

-Hey, Ciel! My body whole body hurts for some reason!?

[[There is no problem. It is only sore muscles.]]

Ciel said with a lack of concern.

What? Sore muscles…!?

For a second, I didn’t even understand what it was that she said.

This was because I never got sore muscle ever since I was reincarnated into a slime.

Not only that, I had ‘Pain Nullification,’ so I wasn’t supposed to feel any pain…

[[I was obeying your order of not wanting to be suspected and made you close to a human. Should I turn the pain off?]]

Ciel said, and I finally understood.

I see. Yes, having sore muscles would not be strange if I were human. Actually, it would be the most natural thing.

I was moving nonstop yesterday, and my feet were tired. And sleeping in a tent without a real bed meant that my body would not be recovering all that much.

It wasn’t only me, but Marsha and Aina also looked like they had not slept well.

If I cut the pain off now, it would draw attention as being very strange. After all, I was a terrible actor.

And so I gave up on being relieved of the pain and decided that I would just have to bear it for a while.

The others awoke, and the second day of our survival began.

Breakfast was just rations, and we used the containers to hold water to replace water bottles.

It was good that the water that had taken so much effort to get yesterday was useful now.

The exploration group was cheerful today as well.

I didn’t see anyone who was still affected by the fatigue of yesterday.

They were trained differently to me.

Actually, I now had a body that had no training at all, so that only made matters even worse…

In any case, the exploration group did their roll-call in full gear in front of the magic circle, and then set out after the physical boost magic had spread to all of them.

After watching them leave, the rest of us that remained started to act.

I wanted to do something about the salt today.

And I had also planned to gather any kind of seeds that could be used as a replacement for pepper.

You only needed a little salt and pepper to enhance the flavor of meat.

To be honest, while I could bear the pain of my sore muscles, I could not bear having to eat bad food.

I felt like I was whipping my sore body as I walked over to the others in the group.

“You look like you’re in pain. Are you alright?”

Mondo said with some concern.

To be blunt, this pain which I had not felt in over a decade, was quite severe.

However, my pride did not allow me to be the only person to give up.

“Of course, I’m alright. More importantly, where are we going today?”

“Huh? Aren’t we going fishing today as well?”

I said while pushing back the pain. George looked at me with surprise.

“I thought that it was fishing today again.”

“Me too.”

Marsha and Aina also thought we were going fishing.

Mondo was nodding, so he must have been thinking the same thing.

“Considering what happened yesterday, we probably won’t catch much. I don’t think we should go fishing today. Besides, we ran out of salt yesterday. Unless we find something to replace it, we won’t be able to eat our catch in a way that tastes good, you know?”

I explained, and everyone agreed with it.

“It seems like everyone else is going towards the watering hole anyway. And I want to explore in a different direction from yesterday…”

That way, it would be only us who would be acting separately from the gathering group. There weren’t enough instructors to escort us, and it was a little risky from a safety perspective, making it the most realistic to investigate near the watering hole.

“Alright. Let’s gather all kinds of plants and seeds today!”

George declared excitedly, and we nodded in agreement.

The students that had been out gathering yesterday were only looking for fruits that were edible.

However, today I intended to search for herbs or seeds that could be used as condiments. They could probably be used as a preservative for the meat from the hunted monsters as well. So acquiring plants with those properties would be important.

Well, perhaps it wasn’t all that important, given that this was only one week.

That being said, it wasn’t a waste, since this was primarily aimed at educating the students.

And like that, our day of gathering had begun.

◆◆◆

It was a block in the city which was surrounded by a gigantic wall.

Diablo moved boldly through the streets, not caring about the eyes around him.

Not only did he rarely leave the central office building in Tempest, but he was able to freely travel anywhere through ‘Spatial Travel,’ so the act of walking the streets was very refreshing to Diablo.

It was Souei who walked next to him.

He wasn’t wearing his usual attire, but wore the same kind of casual clothing that the city residents wore.

Diablo did the same in a black shirt and pants.

However.

And this was true of Souei and Diablo’s clothes, the material was high-quality material that had magic threads made in Tempest, woven into the fabric. They were so expensive, that most onlookers would go pale just imagining how much they would cost.

On top of that, they also wore accessories that were imbued with ultra-advanced magic, and it was hard to imagine a more extravagant way to dress while walking outside.

However, it wasn’t the clothes they wore that was drawing attention.

The main reason was clear, once it was noted that the ratio of men and women staring at them favored women quite heavily.

To put it plainly, they were two very handsome men that were walking.

“They are looking at us. They are so rude.”

Normally there was not a single person with a death wish in the central office who would dare look straight at Diablo.

Be they civil officer or even military officer, all would kneel and look down when passing him in the hallway.

Indeed, there were only a handful of individuals aside from the ones higher up who could take a casual attitude around Diablo.

“Don’t let it bother you. It’s just that your clothes stick out too much.”

“What are you saying. I am all in black and look very plain…”

Souei ignored Diablo’s grumbling, but Diablo was not satisfied.

He had prepared his most plain clothing because they would be going out into the city in secret. And so it was only normal for him to be annoyed at the suggestion that he was drawing too much attention.

(There will be a punishment when we return.)

He decided, even though he couldn’t even remember the face of the person in charge of his clothes. Still, this was not enough to calm his annoyance.

“I know! What if we recognize the action of staring at us as aggression, and have them all killed…”

“Don’t do that. This is why I didn’t want to come here with you.”

Diablo had made this suggestion very happily, but Souei callously rejected it.

And so they continued to be stared at by residents until they reached their destination.

Tempest Development of Human Resources Academy-

It was Tempest’s central education facility that was built under Rimuru’s sponsorship.

And this place was one of the best educational facilities and was one of the three great schools of the world.

Rimuru had ordered that Souei investigate it, and Diablo had come along as well.

They were in front of the gate now, and Souei was talking with someone.

Diablo began to look around aimlessly, and then he spotted a strange group of people.

They wore matching white robes and had hoods that covered their faces.

They seemed to have a detection blocking effect as well, and he could not tell what their races or abilities were.

Demon Lord Milim’s ‘Dragon Eye’ would have been able to see through it without a problem, but Diablo’s ‘Demon Eye’ did not allow him to pry deeper.

(Hmph, how boring.)

Diablo said with annoyance.

Diablo was hardly a perfectionist, and he had his subordinate, Moss to gather information for him. But still, having people who he could not detect standing right in front of him was a problem that he could not ignore.

As Rimuru had released information, the magic in this country had advanced greatly.

Because of this, anti-devil weaponry had also been improved, and now the demons could no longer feel completely safe, even though they were the strongest race.

These days, if you just had the money, it was possible to acquire weapons that were the equivalent of Legend grade.

Even this was still inconsequential to Diablo. But the fact that there was now concealment magic that exceeded his own on the market, was something he couldn’t just leave.

That being said, Diablo was currently pretending to be human and only using one-hundredth of his magic. His abilities had dropped accordingly, and his power now was a far cry from what it usually was…

Diablo’s ‘Demon Eye’ was also affected by his magic, so comparing it to Rimuru or Milim, whose powers did not depend on it, was not exactly fair.

But that wasn’t an excuse for Diablo. He did not like this at all.

(The wearers are estimated to be holy knight level. But they acquired Legend weapons and gained power. Something like that…)

They were not strong enough for him to be cautious.

Even now, if Diablo took them head-on, he could kill all of them in less than a minute.

But still, something about this irritated him. It had to do with the atmosphere that oozed out from the group.

Diablo was about to take a step forward, but someone grabbed his shoulder with a ‘Don’t.’

“You try to cause trouble the moment that I take my eyes off of you.”

Souei said with exasperation.

“Hehehe. No, that’s just not true. Those people were unsettling, so I thought I might talk to them…”

“That is what I mean by ‘causing problems.’”

Souei said and shook his head.

However, he knew that this would happen the moment that Diablo had started to talk about coming with him, and so while he was exasperated, he did not complain.

Souei glanced at the group that Diablo had indicated but continued to talk calmly without the faintest change in expression.

“We got a message from Moss. He arrived safely and contacted a magic teacher from the Ingracia Academy called William Roaz, who was cooperating as a spy.”

“Oh, that is convoluted.”

Diablo nodded at Souei’s words.

He had already lost all interest in the group with the white robes.

To Diablo, the only thing that was important was the movements of Rimuru, his master.

It was because Souei understood this, that he brought it up.

After Laplace had left, Diablo had called for Moss.

And then he ordered for the smallest unit ‘Clone’ that was made from Moss to be relocated close to Rimuru without anyone noticing.

This mission was put into effect by Moss’s ‘Clone’ using ‘Shadow Movement’ through the ‘Sticky Steel String’ that connected Souei and Rimuru.

‘Spatial Travel’ allowed you to travel immediately, but they could not do anything like that since it would draw attention.

And just now, after flying through the shadow space at super high speed, Moss contacted him to announce that he had succeeded in landing on Maldoland island.

It would be best if Rimuru did not notice, but it didn’t really matter either way.

Just like Diablo, Rimuru’s power had also been weakened.

Actually, he had dropped it to be level with humans, so it had dropped at a much more severe rate compared to Diablo.

So perhaps he would not find out, but Diablo would not get his hopes up regarding this.

(Normally, it would be ideal to protect him from the shadows…but it’s not possible to hide things from Lord Rimuru.)

That’s what Diablo thought.

Moss had landed on the island and made contact with this William.

He gave the new ‘Sticky Steel Ring’ that Souei had entrusted to him to William, and they had communicated through ‘Thought Transmission.’

He had likely used this direct method of contact to avoid the possibility of it being intercepted.

In this aspect, Souei was very cautious. Diablo was so impressed that he left a lot of matters to him.

“So, what did Moss say?”

“Don’t get so excited. According to the collaborator-William, Laplace is doing well. The combat instructors were better than expected and were trying to resist.”

“Well, that’s obvious. The academy is sponsored by Lord Rimuru. They have no need for useless people there.”

“However…”

“However?”

Souei ignored Diablo’s words and talked about the report from William.

And he knew full well that Diablo would be furious upon hearing it.

“It seems that there were teachers who didn’t try to protect the students.”

Diablo became enraged in an instant.

“Kill them all. That’s what we should tell Moss.”

Diablo said with a smile.

There was no will to differentiate there. He wanted everyone other than Rimuru and the students massacred.

Souei sighed deeply and then continued without changing his expression.

“I told you not to get too excited. Lord Rimuru has gone through the trouble of going out there for the very purpose of exposing those wretches. Lord Rimuru is not one to throw away the entire box because of one rotten fruit.”

Behind those words lay a certain sentiment: Lord Rimuru would never allow such a thing, you idiot!

Diablo realized this and retaliated to Souei.

“…That may be. But Lord Rimuru shouldn’t have to be bothered by such a small thing…”

“Indeed, I agree with that. And that is why we will deal with whoever mixed the rotten fruits in the box. It will have to be severe, so they will never think of something so foolish ever again.”

“Oh? So, there is a possibility that someone is deliberately meddling with the academy. Is that what you are saying?”

“Exactly. However, it is still under investigation whether it is coming from within the academy or from the outside.”

After hearing these words, Diablo’s eye narrowed and he smiled.

It might have seemed like a gentle expression, but it was actually an incredibly cold one.

So much so, that some of the women who saw him as they walked passed them on the streets ended up losing consciousness.

This both satisfied and calmed Diablo to a certain degree, and so he asked Souei to continue.

He had decided to hold back on his wrath until the time came to differentiate and judge those who were to be dealt with.

Souei had been right all along.

Once Diablo had become calm, he could immediately realize that there was no way that Rimuru would allow them to waste the personnel that he had spent so much effort in raising.

It was only normal for him to work to remove the root of the problem instead.

Souei saw that Diablo was satisfied with this, and continued his explanation.

Currently, the only people who know of Rimuru’s identity were the teachers who William, the collaborator, had seen as trustworthy.

Souei had also agreed to this and had seen it as a convenient thing for Rimuru in the reeducation of the students.

“Hmm. However, what if this William doesn’t have the best judgment?”

“If that happens, then we’ll have to kill them all, including William.”

Souei said bluntly.

Souei himself felt that it was his error that he had not realized the current situation at the academy until Rimuru had pointed it out. And while he would make distinctions unlike Diablo, he meant to still put a purge into effect.

Diablo liked his answer and readily agreed.

It would not be good to bother Rimuru while he enjoyed the island. Both of them agreed on that point and also on the point that they should avoid any meddling past a certain point.

Because of this, they should also respect the decisions of the teachers there and leave the rest to Rimuru.

They would carry out the orders that they had been given.

That was the answer that they settled on.

Diablo and Souei looked at each other and nodded before walking through the gates of the Tempest Development of Human Resources Academy.

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