With Rimuru slinking away, there were now only four people left in the room. There was the beautiful short-haired brunette, the equally beautiful demon standing right next to her with scarlet eyes and white hair, a man wearing a pitch-black butler suit who looked to be in his mid-forties, and the last person was currently basking in all the attention she could muster.
Hinata and Testa came face to face with a short yet bodacious woman who could easily fill every man's dream woman. The first thing that would grab their attention would be the heterochromia in her eyes, with one ocean-blue and one ruby-red. The next thing would be silvery-white hair that flowed down to her mid-back, though it was currently resting between the couch she was sitting on and her back. Her small stature only accented her nicely filled-out curves, and the thigh-length lacy black dress she was wearing added to her overall eroticism.
Hinata, however, wasn't taken aback at all by her beauty. Judging by the look on her face, she was wondering what the hell she was doing in Rimuru's office, wondering why he just left, and most of all, wondering what she meant by her statement. While she could easily piece two and two together and assume that Rimuru and Luminous are getting married, she was just curious as to why.
Luminous has, in fact, shown interest in Rimuru before, but that was mainly because he was taking care of Chloe and prolonged Hinata's life for long enough so that she could save her when the Seven Days Clergy betrayed them. As far as romantically, it was very hard to say that she had any interest in him. Rather, she was more interested in the members of his harem than she was with him. Though she kept her advances, and subsequent exploits, only to Chloe and Hinata, it was no secret to the upper echelons of Tempest that she lusted after all the members of his harem, and when Hinata and Chloe were occupied, she'd 'vent' by going to the elves' red-light district.
Turning her head to Testa, she found the demon at a crossroads. She still had a puzzled look on her face, and having known the woman long enough, she could see that she was wondering exactly how to act. She couldn't really blame her either, as she herself was in the same boat. Deciding to take matters into her own hands, she said, "How about you go catch up with the others. I'll take care of this."
The two exchanged looks, and Testa then simply nodded and exited the room.
"Okay. Now, explain to me why you are here, and what you meant."
The vampire gave her a look that bordered between confused and hurt and retorted, "You leave without a trace for over two months, and this is the reception I get? I'll have you know that I was worried sick and worked extensively hard to make sure that you weren't dead in a ditch somewhere!"
Remembering that she couldn't communicate through worlds with her due to lack of a soul bond with the vampire, her expression softened. She gave as apologetic a look as she could muster while still keeping her pride and said, "I'm sorry for not being able to contact you. However," she said as her expression turned pointed, "I also know that your definition of 'working extensively hard' only means that you yourself asked Rimuru where I was rather than sending Louis or Gunther to do it."
"Tch." Though she was easily seen through, that didn't mean that she couldn't get what she wanted out of the taciturn woman. Standing up, she proclaimed, "I still feel that I'm owed something. You see, my supply of Hinata blood has been running quite low. I need a refill."
Though she wanted to argue with her on this, she knew that it was a fool's errand. Despite evolving into a Spiritual Being with the title of Saint and being able to acquire an Ultimate Skill with the help of Ciel, Luminous would still be able to thrash her about. If there was an argument, it would eventually turn into a fight, Luminous would win, and she'd no doubt take extra for the added effort.
Loosening her coat, she barely had enough time to outstretch her arms as Luminous jumped onto her and quickly formed a seal with her lips onto the base of her neck. Grabbing hold of her waist, she felt a pricking sensation quickly followed by a wave of calmness. This was, at least in Luminous' words, a side effect from when she drinks blood straight from others, though she knew that she could always refrain from releasing those.
"Really?"
A hum was all she got in response, followed by her hands being guided to the vampire's pert butt cheeks.
It was only now that she remembered that Gunther was still in the room, and he was silently averting his gaze towards the nearby window. Though the man had enough sense not to intrude on their time, he had a bad habit that bordered on how Diablo used to act towards Rimuru, in that unless ordered by either her, Hinata, or someone else that Luminous trusted and was above him, he wouldn't leave her side.
Still, she felt that he might have the answers that the eager vampire entirely dismissed, so she told him to meet them at Luminous' penthouse that she owns in Tempest. Hinata thought that it was excessively extravagant, as she bought the place a little after Rimuru had their first festival involving the major international players for his formal debut as a Demon Lord, but she couldn't deny that she had a keen eye for interior design and decoration.
The house involved having three separate stories and was over a thousand square meters per floor, along with a spacious front and backyard. The upkeep would normally be ridiculously expensive and cumbersome, but she both had more than enough money and no shortage of people to make sure the house was always in running order. Especially since she had practically started living there almost five years prior.
She used special movement to teleport them into her bedroom, which had an XL king size bed and still had enough room to fit a small apartment in and sat down on the bed with Gunther following close behind. As soon as she confirmed that no one was in the vicinity with them and that their privacy was confirmed, she asked Gunther to recount the events that led up to her being engaged to Rimuru.
She was surprised, however, to find out that it wasn't a decision based entirely off impulse.
Gunther explained that Luminous had actually come to such a decision long ago, as far back as when Hinata was officially married to Rimuru. While she still did her normal rendezvous with her, she could also slowly see herself being discarded, as at least to her, Hinata made her choice as to who to spend the rest of her life with. While Hinata, and even Chloe and Rimuru for that matter, were sure to assuage her of that fear, it was still pretty clear that as time went on, she wouldn't exactly 'fit in' with the rest of his harem, and they could be pretty ruthless with outsiders as the majority were still his direct subordinates.
While Hinata gave a tired sigh at her selfish reason, the other reason made quite a bit more sense. In the public eye, there was an ever-growing group of people known as Luminism 'purists' who decried the explosive rise of Tempest, and this included any who associated with them. While it was clear to most that these people were both desperately clinging on to the old ways simply because they were either not able to adapt in time, reaped heavy profits before Tempest became a major player, or both, the rise in their membership still posed a problem to the residents of Lubelius.
The major spike in activity from them, however, came about when it was announced that Hinata would become one of his legal wives. They used this and twisted it to their followers and anyone who would listen that he 'corrupted' the last bastion of defense against the demon lord and were starting to use more underhanded methods to achieve their goals.
Still, they weren't exactly stupid. They knew that Rimuru possessed a nigh omnipotent spy network, and the only reason they weren't cut down by Souei's agents or the Black Numbers was simply because they weren't even considered to be enough of a threat towards Tempest to warrant such action. This was also the reason as to why they weren't active when Chloe's marriage was announced, as if they were to poke their heads out right after Rimuru basically saved the entire world, they would have made enemies out of practically everyone on that world.
Of course, the Holy Empire publicly denounced their existence, but there wasn't a whole lot else they could do to dissuade them. Or rather, Luminous simply didn't care enough about them, or her image as a whole, to really try and fight against them.
While she might have been okay with this, it caused no end of headaches for Gunther, Pope Louis, Holy Knight Captain Arnold, and Cardinal Nicholas. They insisted that as the figurehead and leader of both the country and the religion, she should at least take some form of action against what many called heretics. When she proposed the idea of simply killing them, she faced pushback from both Arnold and Nicholas, as while Gunther and Louis were for the idea, the human duo knew that it was only a short-term solution and would only serve to paint her as a tyrant in the long run, and she'd lose favor with the people, especially since they were more much more educated now than ever before.
Though they did the exact same thing with Roy, and pinned all the blame on him, in an ironic twist of fate, Laplace inadvertently dealt with the inevitability of people eventually figuring out that Roy was closely associated with Luminous when she publicly revealed herself by killing him. It still didn't curb any of her hatred for the undead jester, but he was unfortunately under the supervision of Rimuru, and was therefore essentially untouchable.
While she stopped bothering with the purists after her idea was shot down, she then realized a way to tackle the problem altogether without having to resort to any violent means whatsoever, and that was through a marriage with Rimuru. By forming a union with herself and Rimuru, it would solidify the already stable bond their two countries had, would bolster the morale of their people, and would take away the purists' last leg to stand on, completely rendering them without any spiritual backing whatsoever. After that, they only had to goad them on into making a stupid decision, and that now became far easier given their desperation once the engagement was announced.
While this plan was on the back burner for quite some time, primarily because of her pride, she finally acted on it through an impulsive decision when she heard the news of Hinata's sudden disappearance. This forced her to realize that, at any point in time, one of the people she cared about most in her life could just up and vanish, and while she was certain that it wouldn't be permanent, she would much rather have the option of joining her, and consequentially the others, whenever they went on any escapades outside of their world with Rimuru.
Since the process to become one of Rimuru's official wives was extremely tedious the more his harem expanded, she already had plenty of work ahead of her. Normally, to be accepted, you'd need both Rimuru's favor and the unilateral favor of all the current wives. Though this could be circumvented if Ciel gave her approval alongside Rimuru's, and was the standard case when it came to his direct subordinates, even being able to meet with her was a monumental task, despite being a member of the Octogram, which was by far the most powerful organization on the planet.
This only increased her gratefulness to the foresight she had when interacting with the slime and his companions, as well as Chloe for informing her about said slime. Initially, her good intentions were to only ensure that Chloe would be saved, and the Tenma War done with, but after their first meeting, and especially after his official announcement as a demon lord, she had earnestly sought to build and maintain bridges with everyone around him, and to 'tolerate' the nuisances that she believed were 'unfortunately' tied to him.
This made things almost effortless on her part, as due to her status, she was able to meet with all of the harem members, save Hinata, within a week, and thanks to her good standing, gaining approval from them was effortless as well. It was also extremely beneficial that Chloe was vouching for her, so with the support of most of his wives, all she had to do was to clear the final hurdle, and this was something that she was silently dreading.
She was certain that Rimuru would have absolutely no problem with her joining, but the most important piece to make this work would be gaining Ciel's approval, and she had very little to go off of regarding her existence. In the public eye, Ciel practically came out of nowhere to take the position of head wife, and she has only made one public debut, swapping out of her normal appearance that mirrored Rimuru, save for the eyes, and made herself into a carbon copy of Shizue, albeit with brown hair instead of black.
With her appearance, many of the people thought that she was Shizue's sister, or at the very least a close relative, but this was only to satisfy the public about Rimuru's marital affairs. Many of the people still questioned who exactly she was, but with literally all of his wives assuring who she was and vouching for her, along with all of Rimuru's top subordinates, they put their worries to rest.
Luminous, however, wasn't convinced of the cover story. She knew that there was far more behind it, but there simply just wasn't much to work with there. What she could surmise, however, was that Ciel had far more pull in deciding who got to join his harem than the rest, and if she failed to gain her favor, there was zero chance of her joining the harem.
Surprisingly, the meeting went quite smooth. In fact, there were far more surprises that she was privy to thanks to her meeting, and one of them was the knowledge of just how important Ciel was to Rimuru, especially given that she was a manas born from a skill. Of course, this also meant that she wouldn't be able to share this information soon with anyone who didn't already know, so despite how much Guy wanted information on the slime, she would be forced to stand her ground or suffer Ciel's wrath, which she honestly felt was far scarier than anything Guy could come up with.
Once Gunther finished his recounting of the story, apart from the knowledge that Ciel was a manas, Hinata was able to accept her reasoning for her actions. Waving off Gunther, she lied down on the bed with her soon-to-be sister and decided that she could use a break for a couple hours. While she would never admit it to the person in question, or really anyone for that matter, she couldn't deny that it was therapeutic in a way whenever Luminous sucked her blood.
While the lovebirds were enjoying themselves, Testa was making the rounds to meet the people she wanted to meet, as well as checking in with her subordinates. The first couple of idio- people she wanted to meet were her fellow demons, specifically Carrera and Ultima. She was certain the duo would have tried to outdo each other and immediately ask for Rimuru's hand in marriage, so she wanted to see how far they've gotten.
When she got to the yellow demon's office, she found the door cracked open and decided that knocking would lessen the element of surprise. Opening the door with a bright smile and a confident stride in her steps, she was a little deflated when she saw Carrera sitting casually and going through paperwork.
"Oh. Hey. How's the new world with Rimuru-sama?"
Immediately, she could tell something was off. There was almost no shortage of things that either she or Ultima could do that would either piss her off, wonder how deep their stupidity could go, or just wonder what the hell was going through their minds, but she could count the number of times on one hand that they genuinely surprised her.
This interaction would add to the tally.
Normally, the reaction that she would get whenever they hadn't seen each other for some time is an immediate request for a fight, or something just plain stupid, like Carrera asking to borrow Moss for use as target practice or Ultima's somewhat odd requests to further her infatuation for developing more unique and toxic poisons. This made the insanely calm reaction all that more surprising, and she wasn't able to hide it.
"What… the fuck?"
Carrera gave her a puzzled look. "What do you mean? I'm simply asking how your trip is going. We didn't get much of a chance to chat with our soul bonds, so I figured I'd just ask you directly."
To Testa, however, this was all too foreign for her. "No, no, no, no, no. Don't you normally have some stupid request or wanting to challenge me to a fight? Something like saying, 'I'll make sure to beat your ass this time!'"
Carrera chuckled and gave a distant look. "Ah, that was the old Carrera. This is the new Carrera. Please discard all the notions you have of the old me. It was a silly phase of mine, and I've decided to turn a new leaf."
To Testa, however, this legitimately felt like she was in some new world with someone she recognized as Carrera, but simply wasn't her. As she was certain that hell would freeze over before anything even remotely resembling a calm demeanor would be Carrera's default choice during these types of situations.
If this is some joke, she's seriously putting in a stellar performance. Though it needs to end now.
As much as she may have complained about her, she couldn't deny that she was a fun person to be around. Except, of course, when she was in one of her explosive moods and would blow holes through the labyrinth floors for fun. Things got particularly nasty when she was drunk, and it got to the point where Rimuru threatened to ban her from any alcoholic beverage if she didn't curb that behavior.
This new Carrera just seemed… wrong. Firstly, it was far to jarring of a change, and secondly, it simply didn't suit the nature of a demon who loved wantonly throwing out nuclear magic. Deciding to get to the bottom of this, she closed and locked the door behind her, sat down right in front of her desk, and said, "Tell me everything that happened while I was gone."
The answer she got from the demon was far more in line with the behavior she was accustomed to.
To absolutely no one's surprise, once news spread about Testa's confession, the demon duo were among the first to react to it, and they did so by immediately confessing to Rimuru. The problem happened in how they decided to do so, as rather than an afterhours meeting or a simple request that would have been more in line with what they were attempting to do, they created the perfect set of circumstances and managed to somehow seriously piss Rimuru off, which was a feat that very few people had ever both seen and lived to tell the tale, especially if they were the perpetrators.
Instead of the aforementioned ideas, they decided that speed was of the essence, and they both raced to Rimuru's office. Unfortunately, they both arrived at the same time, and not wanting to lose even so much as a millisecond, they barged into his office and immediately professed their desire to be with him. Since both of them were talking, neither voice could be clear, so they spoke louder, then started arguing with each other which quickly turned into shouting, which escalated into threats, and eventually, they were prepared to face off against each other in battle.
The venue, however, was probably the worst one they could have chosen, as they were still inside of his office, and he immediately had to use Azathoth to take them into his separate dimension where they could duke it out and not destroy the entire country. After letting them settle for a bit, he brought them back out and showed his signature 'smile that meant you really fucked up' smile and berated them for letting their emotions run them absolutely wild.
One of the things that he said was to come back at a later point in time, and to seriously reflect on their decisions for what could have led to a serious disaster had he not been there. This led to both Carrera and Ultima wondering what kind of woman Rimuru would desire most, and since most of them weren't loud and rambunctious, save for Milim, they decided that they would need to adopt that sort of attitude if they were to win his heart and affection.
When Testa heard the full story, she desperately tried to stifle the laughter that was emanating from her throat. While she was able to cover her face with her hands, it didn't stop the subtle shaking she made whenever she silently chuckled, and anyone would be able to detect it, especially someone with Carrera's perception.
"Stop… Stop laughing please."
That only served to make her laugh more, and this time sound was coming out. Rather than the bell-like laugh most people would associate with her, she looked ready to howl with laughter at any time.
Carrera grew an imaginary tick mark on her temple, and her façade broke quite quickly. "I know! I know! It was stupid! But I can't do anything about it now! Just…! Just stop laughing!"
To her credit, Testa did reel herself in… albeit she was still letting out some involuntary chuckles. Though she calmed down enough to say, "You… you need to understand that… your overall behavior isn't why he rejected you."
"…Huh?"
"He was only angry that you almost blew up the capital. If you're trying to join his harem, you only need to ask. I seriously don't know what thought process you had to overthink it to such an extent."
Carrera's face looked like a video of someone going through a rollercoaster of emotions. First, there was shock, then there was hope along with exuberant joy, before slowly dissipating to make room for sadness and despair, which is the face she remained with as her head plopped on the desk.
"He's probably still pissed that I almost blew up everything he worked for. I don't know if he'd accept me as I am."
While Testa would usually just leave at this point, as Carrera was prone to mood swings from time to time, she knew that this one would stay for a while. As it would lower her productivity, and was just pathetic to look at, she decided to lend some help. Though she also had an ulterior motive.
"Tell you what. We're here for the next few days, so set up a meeting with him sometime between now and before we leave, and we'll discuss what to say to him in the time being. If it makes you feel any better, I'll personally vouch for you."
Carrera immediately perked up at the sound of this, but she knew that Testa wouldn't go this far out of her way free of charge for anyone but Rimuru. "There's something you want to gain out of this, isn't there?"
"Oh, absolutely."
"…You could at least pretend like you have no ulterior motive. What's the catch?"
"I guess you'll just have to find out."
Carrera seriously pondered about taking her deal. Accepting it would virtually guarantee that Rimuru would accept her, as she is far more articulate when it came to voicing what she wants from him. Having her words, along with a sincere apology, would be incredibly beneficial. On the other hand, accepting a deal without knowing the terms went against everything she knew as a demon.
Unfortunately for her, Testa put on her salesperson mentality and promoted this deal to the max. "Think about it. An eternity of bliss and pleasure in exchange for one little favor. Even I would accept this deal."
Though she wanted to point out that she wasn't in her position, she didn't want to risk Testa just walking out of the room. After some deliberation that was made apparent by her facial expressions, she said, "Okay. Let's do it."