I'm not a fool. I'm not a fool. I'm not a fool. The same sentence repeated in Mikaeru's mind over and over as the sight of that girl sent a shock through his mind.
Rimuru looked at his counterpart. He had gone silent after the image of the girl appeared. It was odd. Over the course of the few months he had known him, he had never seen Mikaeru react like that. He asked once again, "Mikaeru, are you feeling okay?"
"Huh?" As if snapping out of a trance, Mikaeru jerked up, "Oh, yes, yes~. I'm fine. Hehe."
Rimuru's body leaned to one side in a replication of a head turn. "Do you…know her?"
"It doesn't matter." Expertly maneuvering the conversation, Rimuru watched as he buried what had just happened. Just what happened there?
"Veldazel?" Mikaeru muttered to himself as he sat in a library the next day. As he had expected, the timing was off. Vesta never showed up, which was convenient for him. In the original story, thanks to the order, Rimuru had ended up spending a few days waiting for Kaijin's order to finish. It was only after that, that he was invited to the bar. Those days were the time that Mikaeru would have used to learn about this altered timeline. However, with the changes going on in this turn of events, the time to learn was now after the bar.
His efforts turned out to not be wasted. There wasn't much he could find on the hero party that attacked Veldora outside of the fact that there were apparently two True Heroes there. However, something else had caught his attention. This timeline had a fifth True Dragon, or more accurately a different second.
Stellar Chaos Dragon Veldazel was a recorded True Dragon older than Velzard. There wasn't much detail as to the dragon's temperament thanks to the country being isolationistic, but it alarmed him as he read that he claimed territory just south of the Eastern Empire.
"They border Tempest." He said with a sigh.
More specifically, they bordered the Jura Forest's south-east edge. Moving onto more basic facts.
As he guessed, the map was different. The continent was the same shape but it featured an additional scar. Dead center in the intersection point between the Eastern Empire, the Jura Forest and the Dragon Dynasty sat a massive lake with an interconnected river system flowing from it. The result of a massive magical explosion 2000 years prior. The Ameld Rapids that got in the way of their journey were part of that system.
Mikaeru looked back at a picture of Veldazel. His body tightened, "This bastard kind of looks like…"
"Watcha doing?" Mikaeru was cut off by the sound of Rimuru jumping in. Behind him was Gobta.
"Oh, so you're back from picking him up?" The two had forgotten Gobta back in the prison. Well, Rimuru forgot him, Mikaeru just didn't care, so Rimuru had taken it upon himself to go pick up the hobgoblin.
Gobta looked downtrodden. "What's wrong?"
Gobta looked up at Mikaeru with a look of righteous fury. He told Mikaeru how Rimuru explained where they went the night before. "Oh, I see, I see~." Mikaeru chuckled to himself. "Well, maybe next time."
Rimuru jumped up to the table, looking at the books Mikaeru had gathered. "What are you looking for?"
"Nothing in particular. I just figured it would be best to get information on this world's situation. It's best to be well informed, even if you're just a slime."
"I see." Rimuru looked down. "True Dragon?"
"Apparently this is Veldora's older brother. He wasn't kidding about being a big shot. All of the True Dragons are recorded in legends and ancient records."
Rimuru looked at the page, "So he has siblings."
"Yup." He used some [Sticky Threads] to return some of the books to their shelves. "I wouldn't recommend an introduction to them until we're stronger, not that we could. Only one has a recorded set location and the guy's apparently king of an entire country."
Mikaeru jumped down, followed by Rimuru. "Is there anything you came to talk to me about?"
"No, I was just wondering what you were doing."
"I see." Mikaeru rolled around, "Well, I'd say I'm pretty much done here. Let's go meet up with Kaijin.
Rimuru followed along. When they came back, they walked in on something interesting.
It seemed fate wasn't going to let Vesta slide. The future Tempest work horse was in Kaijin's workshop, ordering him to make something. Hearing the commotion, Mikaeru couldn't help but move in.
He was giving Kaijin a work order that he didn't seem pleased about. Screaming was all the talk had devolved to by the point they got there. While he was still a commoner, Kaijin did have his status as a former highly respected scientist and engineer to hold his ground, even against a noble like Vesta.
Rimuru leaned back, wanting to stay out of trouble. Fair enough. It wasn't an advised decision to get involved in a fight that wasn't theirs. However, Mikaeru decided that much wasn't a style for him.
Acting clueless of the situation, he jumped in, asking, "Yo, Kaijin! Is something going on!?"
Kaijin's eyes widened as Vesta's head snapped over. "And just what is this monster doing here!?"
Kaijin jumped in, "Vesta! Don't think you can go ahead and make fun of a benefactor like that!"
With an angry look, the noble yelled, "Benefactor!? Have you sunk that low, Kaijin!? To call a mere monster your benefactor! It is but a lowly slime!"
Kaijin's grip on his hammer increased. "Vesta! Get out of my shop! I refuse your commission!"
"Refuse!?" Vesta said. "Think carefully about what you just said. I'll report this to the king!"
"Grr." Kaijin growled. "That commission is not possible in a week, Vesta! You already know that!"
"Are you saying you are not willing to put in the work, Kaijin!? What would the king say to that!?"
Mikaeru jumped over, "What is the commission?"
Kaijin turned to the slime, "15 axes in a week."
Mikaeru nodded. "I see. Do you have any in stock now?" If Vesta asked for it, then he would get it.
Kaijin's anger was replaced with mild confusion. "Well, yes. I made one a few weeks ago."
"Can you bring it here?" He turned to Vesta. "15, right? I can go ahead and make them here and now."
Vesta looked offended at the idea, "Are you saying you, a slime, will be able to fulfill that request?"
"Yes." Mikaeru watched as Rimuru looked on from just outside the door. It didn't take long to hear him.
{Notice- Unique Skill [Soul Link] has been activated}
"Mikaeru. What are you planning?" He asked.
"I'm going to replicate the battle axe." He replied.
"What!?" Rimuru yelled out, "Are you sure that's…"
He knew what Rimuru had a problem with. The act of using their unique skills openly. He was cautious in the original as well. However, regarding witnesses, the number of people was limited to Kaijin and Vesta, which would both move to Tempest if all went well, along with Rimuru and Gobta, which were already aware of them.
There was no problem here. "It's fine, just watch."
{Notice- Unique Skill [Soul Link] has been deactivated}
Kaijin seemed confused at the request, but after Mikaeru asked for the axe again, he decided to comply. Mikaeru took a look at the axe. It wasn't a particularly complex design. The axe head was made of refined magisteel while the handle was made out of reinforced wood. One quirk about magisteel is it was actually lighter than normal steel and those that typically carried them were also superhuman. The end result being the weapon's business end was huge. Large enough to tear an armorsaurus' head clean off with a good hit.
"Not bad," Mikaeru muttered before using [Predator].
"Ah!" He could almost feel the panic in Kaijin's voice before Mikaeru began to glow.
"Don't worry." He reassured him. "I'm not just looking for a meal." [Great Sage], do your thing.
{Notice- Analysis of the magisteel axe is complete..
Preparing to replicate…Complete}
From Mikaeru out popped 15 battle axes identical to the ones from before. Vesta and Kaijin immediately went wide-eyed at the sight. "There you go."
"W-wha…" Vesta stuttered. "You can't just!" He ran over, "How are we to confirm their high quality!"
"If you want to test them out, you could have experts look at them. It would be a waste of effort though, given they are exact copies." Mikaeru arrogantly warned. "Shouldn't you be happy? This is what you wanted, right? Or maybe you just wanted to torment Kaijin?" Mikaeru internally smiled, "Jealousy, am I right? You were jealous of him. That's why you took the first opportunity to throw him under the bus, right?"
Vesta went red with rage, "You despicable slime!" He walked over and lifted his foot, "I'll have you killed for this!" Mikaeru didn't move as the dwarf attacked.
He knew it would never come. Kaijin jumped in, punching Vesta as hard as he could. The lanky dwarf went flying, crashing into a display of raw materials.
Kaijin's stronger than I expected, Mikaeru thought.
Rimuru ran in, followed by Gobta. "What just happened!?" He said in an overwhelmed tone.
Kaijin sighed, "Something I've wanted to do for a long time." He smirked, "Sorry for dragging you guys into this. I promise to make it up to you."
Rimuru looked confused, "What do you mean?"
Mikaeru explained, "Kaijin, a commoner, just attacked a nobleman. He's not particularly high ranked, but that doesn't really matter here. There's no way this doesn't go all the way up to the king and as for Kaijin, while his reputation will keep him from getting a death sentence, he's guaranteed to lose out somehow…and we were here to watch." He sensed the nearby area, "There's no chance of hiding the evidence either. This entire city is crawling with the king's personal spies."
Kaijin raised a brow, "You know more than expected. You even knew about those spies."
"Wait, there are spies in this city?" Rimuru asked.
"Yeah. Don't blame you if you weren't able to see them. The bastards are hard to spot."
Kaijin laughed, "You're a brave one, I'll give you that! I don't know of many that would call them that."
Not long after that, three of the four sensed the arrival of a trio of hidden guards and all four turned around to look at them. The two slimes stiffened ever so slightly. The weakest of them was A-Rank in strength which was around equal to their current maximum.
They were arrested not long after. As they made their way out, they saw the dwarf brothers. They had been on their way to the shop when this happened. Garm gave Kaijin a secret nod as if asking him something. Kaijin closed his eyes and smirked, before nodding back. The dwarf trio seemed to understand.
Later that day as they sat in their cell awaiting trial, Rimuru jumped over to Kaijin after tying up Gobta again for whining too much. "So, about that noble guy. Did you have some dark history with him or something?"
Kaijin turned to the slime, "Well, no sense in hiding it now." Mikaeru already knew what it was of course, having used it to purposely anger Vesta. The magic-armor soldier project was a dwarven weapons development project worked on with the aid of a team of elves by both Kaijin and Vesta. During the project, Kaijin had advised Vesta to not rush with it. Vesta, of course, didn't listen and thus the project failed.
The spirit-magic core powering the armor went out of control, creating a very public failure that not only set back the project but completely canceled it.
As the head of the engineering corps, Kaijin was set up to take the fall for the mistake thanks to Vesta making sure the people gave false testimonies against him. In the end, Kaijin left the Dwargon military force.
Kaijin sighed as he finished telling his story, "Vesta has a good mind, but I would be lying if I said it isn't clouded sometimes. Maybe he'll settle down if I leave the country for some time." He leaned back, "Maybe that would be for the best of this country."
"Are you sure this will go well?" Rimuru asked.
"I cannot say the trial is going to go perfectly," Kaijin started, "but I wouldn't worry about it. I'm out of the army now but I was once a corps leader. As far as my social position stands, I am just below baron. They wouldn't be able to do anything too serious to me. I am most likely going to be exiled thanks to this."
"Are you okay with that? Don't you have friends or family?" He questioned cautiously.
"You're very kind, Rimuru." Kaijin crossed his arms. "I'll be fine. It's just my brother and I right now, along with those three idiots. They can fend for themselves well." He smirked, "Come to think of it, we might even be able to negotiate some time before I have to leave."
Mikaeru seemed interested, "Oh really?"
"Yeah, my grandfather Kaitin was a big name for those in the know. I heard he was friends with a hero from my father, but Kaidou and I haven't seen him. My guess is the guy is probably retired by now." He leaned forward, "Anyways, something I know for sure is the sword the king uses was forged by my grandfather."
This is original to this timeline, Mikaeru thought. "I see." He said, "Guess the legendary blacksmith wasn't just a fluke. Your entire family is something special."
Kaijin laughed, "I guess you could say that!"
The area went quiet, "By the way, Kaijin. Would you like to come over to the village with us?"
"Eh?" Kaijin said. "You invited me with you?"
"You said you're going to be exiled, right? We already got the brothers to come with us, so why not come along with them? It's not like you have anywhere else to go. It's not a bad idea, right?"
Kaijin put a hand to his chin, "I guess you have a point." He smiled, "Alright then. I'll come along!"
Mikaeru watched as Rimuru excitedly invited him as well. Just like that, they secured their blacksmith.
The group was cut off by the sound of someone entering the cell area. One of the royal guards. It was time for their trial. The king was waiting.