Boing, boing, boing, boing-
"You know, Shion. I really appreciate you."
"Thank you, Lord Rimuru!" You know, once you figure her out, Shion's really easy to please.
I was having Shion carry me around town. With all the peace going on, I really had nothing else to do, and it was bliss.
'Lord Rimuru.' Soei's cold voice coming through on Thought Communication knocked me right out of my lazy train of thought. 'We have an emergency. Several hundred winged horses are headed for the town.'
'Get Risa.' I ordered him, cutting off the thought communication.
"Shion, it's an emergency. I'll call for Benimaru and Hakuro, you get Rigurd to alert the townsfolk!"
"Right!"
Long story short, according to Wise One, this was an organized army of knights riding on pegasi. Each pegasus looked to be ranked at an A-minus, with the knight atop them roughly the same. Together, they easily passed the wall to A-rank. Around five hundred of them. In effect, this was an even bigger threat than 200,000 orcs. If we fought these guys, Wise One gave us a 65% chance of being slaughtered.
If that was necessary, then we'd have to take the risk, but I hoped that there was still room for negotiation. In the meantime, I had Geld rushing to get his orcs ready for battle, just in case.
Luckily, Kaijin agreed with me that there was probably room for negotiation. According to him, he'd heard of a top secret Dwarven force of flying knights. Apparently, they were officially known as the Pegasus Knights, and even Kaijin, with his high rank in the Dwarven Army, only knew about them through drunken hearsay.
…
(Risa POV)
The Pegasi landed in an open field just outside town, having looped around the town a few times in the air.
"But why are they here now?" Big Bro was asking Kaijin when I Shadow Motioned over.
"Maybe because of the orc lord? But that's all settled now."
"Ohh! Hey, Rigurd? Did we ever tell Kabal and his friends that we settled the Orc Lord thing?"
"Ah…?"
"Oh, man. Better send a message. Soei, can you take care of that once we deal with our new visitors?"
"Yes, my lord."
We headed out of town to greet them, along with all of our top officers, including Kaijin and the three dwarf brothers. By the time we made contact with them, the knights were lined up in neat rows, with a tall, strong-looking crowned dwarf and his four bodyguards dominating the field with their sheer force of presence. The strong-looking one felt like he was maybe even stronger than Big Bro, though not by too much, while the other four flanking him gave off auras on the levels of maybe Shuna. Equal to Ranga or Hakuro at the strongest, making them far above A-rank, but not really comparable to Benimaru, Shion, Big Bro, or I. I suspected that we could beat them in a fight… a fight that part of me really wanted to have, but there'd likely be quite a bit of collateral damage from it.
Kaijin spoke first, trying to bridge the gap between our two parties diplomatically. "Well, well, Your Majesty. Quite a long time, and impressive showing, as well! May I ask what brings you here, today?" He asked, taking a knee before his former king.
King Gazel smiled at that, "A pleasure to see you, Kaijin. You as well, slime. Do you remember me?"
"Big Bro, you know him?" I asked, cocking my head. This was enough to calm Benimaru and Soei down, a bit. Though they were still clearly mad about Big Bro being called 'slime.' That's what he was, though, so I couldn't exactly call it too disrespectful.
"Yeah, thanks for not sending us to prison." Big Bro replied to the king.
Of course, Big Bro did something stupid, when we went to Dwargon.
"M-my liege?!" Kaijin stammered, deeply shocked for some reason.
King Gazel began to laugh. "I see your head is unbending as always, Kaijin! Just so you know, on paper at least, I came here as a private citizen. Had I not, I likely would not have been allowed out of my own bedchamber!"
"So, you're saying that you'd rather I just speak as I wish, then?" Big Bro asked.
"By all means! I came here to speak to the slime that managed to defeat the Orc Lord, not be bound by formal ceremony!" The king boomed.
"Alright, then." Big Bro turned into his human form. For him, it didn't really matter how much time he spent practicing stuff like that, it was just instantly mastered as well as possible, so he spent most of his time in his slime form, though not all. "Then, I should introduce myself. My name is Rimuru, and while I am a slime, I'd rather not be called that. After all, I'm kinda the leader of the Great Forest of Jura Alliance."
The king's advisors had a pretty big reaction to Big Bro's transformation.
"Such a high level magic-born!"
"Some sort of skill-based status transformation…? No sudden surge of magicules or anything, but a humanoid form could allow it to change its method of battle, boosting its abilities quite a bit."
"I don't think I've ever seen a rare variant like this before… and the monsters behind it are rather strange and powerful, too!"
"Yes… Four kijin and something that I can't identify… Kijin are generally on the level of an orc lord, but the one beside them that looks like a little girl… Almost as strong as this 'Rimuru' fellow…" An old woman commented.
"Really?! That strong!? Should we dispatch them before they grow too strong to handle?"
"I doubt that'd go very smoothly. I also doubt we could underestimate the danger here." The old woman replied in a bitter tone. I could sense that she'd used some kind of magic to prod us for data… So had the king, according to Big Bro's skill. The king had, annoyingly enough, managed to get a basic read on my and Big Bro's thoughts… I suspected Big Bro was letting him do so, but it didn't really matter, but I'd made sure to completely block the old crone's spell from gathering anything on me.
"SILENCE!" The king boomed, stunning his entourage into silence, "I have decided to evaluate this slime- Rimuru, for myself. I would appreciate it if you all held your tongues in the meantime."
"Yeah, sorry if I scared you guys. I just figured that it'd be more natural for you to converse with someone that looked human, so I used my Universal Shapeshift skill. It's just mimicry." Big Bro explained.