After Rimiris's little interruption, we ended the summit and took a long soak in Tempest's famous baths for a bit of relaxation. While we were bathing, Erald asked me to build a road between Tempest and Thalion, like I'd done with Blummund and Dwargon. Naturally, I happily accepted his proposal. There wasn't much to lose, and Geld seemed excited at the prospect… though I didn't quite understand why he considered construction work as military training.
Of course, the road to Thalion would be an entirely different beast compared to the Dwargon and Blummund roads. More treacherous, longer, it would need to go straight through an entire mountain range.
Geld could do it, no problem, but it didn't change the fact that this was a big job. As it stood, traveling between Tempest and Thalion was nearly impossible for the average merchant. Nobody did it. Which meant that a road like that was worth a lot to both parties.
So, I had Erald agree to a few stipulations in return for us agreeing to lay it down. Basically, Tempest owned the road. We'd run the lodging, and collect a small toll for our troubles. His only stipulation was that the toll gets renegotiated every few years, a fine agreement.
…
(Risa POV)
Now that I'd evolved into a Demon Lord, I had the Universal Shapeshift skill. That meant that I could transform my body into anything I felt like with a simple thought. For me, that meant that whatever I chose to be, I was. I felt just as comfortable in my humanoid form as I did my slime one, unlike Rimuru, who said that he preferred his slime form for some reason. I suppose the subconscious was more important than I realized, and mine was just a bit more flexible than his.
"He-he-he! Hey, that tickles!"
"Just allow us to service you, Lady Ramiris."
"Yes, it's our pleasure." I was sulking, just a bit, as three, no, now there's four dryads, fawned over Ramiris like she was some sort of higher-being.
"Oh, come here, Lady Risa. Let me wash your hair." It wasn't real hair, but shapeshifted hair, and thanks to Dominion effects, I could simply will it clean, if I felt like, but it still felt nice.
"Thanks, Shion. It's nice to have you back."
"Nice to be back, Lady Risa!" Shion replied with a peppy smile.
I laid back, idly thinking as she washed my hair for me.
"You know, Lady Risa, that face doesn't really fit you well. A newborn demon lord should be a lot more carefree, like Lady Ramiris over there." Shuna said from inside the tub. "What are you thinking?"
"Are you two going to tell Big Bro Rimuru how you feel about him?" I flinched as soon as I asked the question. No, that wasn't me. That was Shion.
How the hell had she managed to pull out a clump of my hair? I was a Demon Lord with Personal Dominion on me at all times. That literally should've been impossible.
I ignored it, though. Pain Nullification and Universal Shapeshift had already done their work before I'd even realized what Shion had done.
But Shion was the only one surprised by my question. Shuna just ignored it, cutting to the heart of the matter. "Lady Milim can be a bit irresponsible, but I promise you, she's not being controlled, Lady Risa. She's just fine."
I made a noncommittal noise. "Ramiris embedded the Spirit Body Regulation Module before I could finish it."
"Ohh, you're still on that?!" Ramiris complained from her spot inside the horde of dryads, "We ran all the tests, it works exactly as we'd planned. It all turned out fiine!"
"It could've exploded, Lady Ramiris!" I shot back, "Or malfunctioned. Badly, who knows? Beretta could've died or worse, and all of that work would've been destroyed!"
"Oh, like that matters. Nothing would've been harmed or lost, even in the worst case scenario." I hated it when Ramiris was the voice of reason, "You're just jealous that you weren't there to see it go online."
"Yeah! I am!" I finally admitted aloud, "And I can't even analyze it because Beretta is in the other bath. It can be researched, upgraded, and I have no idea how!"
Boundless curiosity, but I couldn't do a thing about it. And I was worried about Milim, on top of it all.
I knew that she could literally sneeze Clayman to death if she felt like it, but I was worried anyway. Because she was Milim, and hearing that she'd destroyed the entire capitol city of Eurazania for no reason, something completely out of character for her, terrified me.
The Spirit Body Regulation Module that Ramiris had embedded into Beretta's golem frame was something that I'd thought up while we were testing all of the different features that I'd put into his golem body.
Something she'd also finished without me.
Basically, it was a miniature computer meant to help Beretta regulate his golem body. It also did a bunch of helpful things, like allowing him to use echolocation to create a detailed map of his surroundings whenever he felt like without using a hint of magic. It was even capable of running calculations.
Theoretically. I had no clue whether it actually worked or not, because Ramiris had embedded my module into Beretta while I'd been off dealing with New Farminus. And since she'd shown up here, Beretta in tow, I'd been too busy with other things to do a detailed analysis.
"AHH!!" I finally just screamed into the air.
'Notice. Rimuru used Dominion effect to isolate noise.'
Thank you, Isis.
"I don't want to deal with any of this!" I shouted into the air, as if shouting it out loud had some power to make it not real, let me just hole up in Ramiris's labyrinth and throw myself into my research with (and maybe sometimes on) my friends forever.
"Well, that's life for ya." Ramiris replied, "If it makes you feel any better, I'm definitely moving to Tempest once everything's said and done, so we can go right back to having fun."
"You're moving here, Lady Ramiris?" Shuna, Shion, and Treyni all asked in chorus.
"I'm guessing that you haven't run that by Rimuru yet?" Shuna noted.
"He'll say yes! Big Bro will say yes." I immediately shot Shuna's reservations down.
"Excellent! It will be nice to live with you once more, Lady Ramiris." Treyni said, using her fingers to carefully clean Ramiris's body, eliciting squeals and giggles from the tiny fairy.