I had Hakuro handle the mediator position. Originally, I actually wanted the lizardman chief's guard to deal with it, but she refused.
Once he declared the meeting underway, everyone turned to me, reminding me just how much I hated meetings like this.
Still, I needed to share what I knew.
To the orcs' surprise, I started with everything that I knew about their situation. Basically, their original home was in a terrible place, just between three separate demon lords' domains. When they had a large famine, they were suddenly unable to pay their taxes to these demon lords, and thus lost all of their rights to protection, forcing them to move to the edges of the forest, which didn't help much with the famine. They were still dying en masse, and that was when the orc lord had been born.
But even that didn't change their overall situation. Even with him, they weren't anywhere near strong enough to simply barge into the forest and demand food, so when Gelmud came along, backed by a demon lord with the resources to arm the entire lot, they'd had no choice but to jump on it. Really, they'd been screwed over even more than all the other involved races, since they'd basically been manipulated into marching to their deaths.
Still though, you couldn't really blame them. Anyone dying of starvation would've done the same thing, after all.
By the time I finished with this, the orc delegation was staring at me, wide-eyed. Some were even crying, and yet again, I couldn't blame them. They'd probably expected none of this to come up at all. In fact, they were probably prepared to die on the spot.
After that, we had the lizardmen run through their casualties, causing the orcs to hang their head again.
"Chief. Do you have any demands you wish to make of the orcs, then?" Hakuro asked. Basically, anything was on the table. The orcs had one-sidedly attacked them, and lost, after all.
But the chief shook his head. "No. This victory was won through Sir Rimuru, not our own doing." And thus, he pushed all the winners' rights onto me, forfeiting his rights to reparations. Not that he could've expected much, but this worked out rather well. If I'd lost my people to this stupidity, I wasn't sure that I would've been able to be so magnanimous.
The orcs were technically the next to speak. I turned to them, wondering what they'd say.
"Please allow me to speak!" The orc general shouted, kowtowing as hard as he could in my direction, rubbing his forehead against the rough ground. "All of us here… we wish to make up for this disaster with our very lives! I know this is not enough, but there is nothing else we could possibly use to pay you for these terrible atrocities!"
Even after Geld's demise, this guy was around an A-minus or so. Strong dude. Basically, he was ready to put that impressive amount of magicules on the table, in exchange for our forgiveness.
Yeah, that wasn't gonna solve anything, though.
Alright, time to do away with these formalities and say what was really on my mind. "Alright, look. I'm not very good with meetings like this, so I'm just gonna say what I'm thinking, and I'd like everyone to mull on it for a little bit. First thing's first, I have no intention in charging the orcs for any crimes or whatever." I went on to explain my reasoning. Nobody really seemed to respond right away, but that was fine, "I know that you guys all have your own thoughts about this, but I really don't see the point in punishing the orcs for anything. They already regret what they did, and I frankly think it'd be better if we focused more on what to do with all of them, so that more people don't die. Plus, I promised the demon lord Geld. I've taken the crimes committed by the orcs on, and if any of you have a problem with that, I'd like to hear it!"
The orcs stared at me, shocked still.
"Benimaru. You lost your homeland to this. Do you take issue with my decision?" I asked.
"No, my lord. And I doubt any of my fallen comrades would, either. All monsters are linked by one, sole, immutable rule. Only the strong survive. On top of that, we're your loyal subjects now. We would never have any issues with the decisions you make." Benimaru responded. That was nice to hear. The other kijin nodded in agreement, but still…
"-" The lizardman chief spoke before I could ask him what he thought of it.
"We have no complaints with this, either. Your ogre aide is right. You saved us, and thus, we are in no position to argue your choice. However, can I take this to mean that you intend to accept the entire orc population's right to live in this forest?"
Yeah… that was the big issue. 170,000 orcs. It was a huge ask.
"I am." A clamor instantly erupted, but Hakuro immediately silenced them, gesturing for me to continue. "And I get that the thought makes you nervous. You're right- I have no clue whether it's actually possible or not, but I think it might be. If we all work together."
My vision was grand, but actually pretty simple. I wanted an alliance with every race in the forest. I wanted the lizardmen to offer their seafood and water. I wanted the goblins to offer their housing space. Us, our manufactured goods, and the orcs, their labor.
As it stood, if we didn't do anything, the orc forces would go off and form raiding parties, striking at the lizardmen and goblins in time. It'd be a huge pain.
But, if we spread their settlements out and kept cohesion, we could create orc settlements all across the forest. Our people could provide technical instructions, and I was sure that we could all figure out the food supply if we worked together on it.
Plus, I needed good workers. Our town was critically short on labor, after all. They could deal with their own affairs beyond getting technical instructions from us.
Honestly, a giant number of people would likely turn out to be really useful, from harvesting the forest's untouched natural resources, to labor, to supply lines and more. We could create an entire nation right here in this forest!
"And that's just about it. Wouldn't it be pretty neat if we built a nation like that, composed of multiple races?"
Unlike before, everyone in the room was excited. I could feel the sense of hope pervading the room, now.
So, somehow, I became the Chancellor of the Great Forest of Jura Alliance.
From there, the conference moved into figuring out the logistics of the mass orc relocation. According to Treyni, the treants naturally gave out magicule-filled fruits that didn't decompose, and obviously, trees couldn't eat fruits, so they had enough of a surplus to feed the entire orc army for a little while, at least.
'Notice. It may be possible to speed up the growth of crops using an exact manipulation of magicules. Once the specifics are figured out, it should be possible to program a magical tool to almost instantly grow a field when filled with magicules.' Wise One for the win! I'd need to do the legwork for that on my own, but between that and the treants, our food situation was solved.