(A/n: Holy shit, this chapter is kind of a monster. I didn't want to split it but seeing as the end result was damn near 9000 words, I felt it necessary. Anyways, enjoy!)
Souma woke up today, much like any other day since a couple nights before the gala, with Liscia right by his side. Ever since Testa had given Liscia advice on how to make some progress with their relationship, something Souma has been quite grateful for, they've been spending every night in her room. Never the king's room, however, as Souma, much to Liscia's dismay, has been using it as a storage place of sorts.
Liscia has, however, wanted to progress their relationship even more, but outside of making out, there hasn't been that much else going on in their budding relationship. However, this time, it was more a reason of both not fully knowing how to properly spice things up in their relationship, and also as a result of Liscia not wanting to get pregnant so soon before the war. Of course, her reasoning was mostly selfish, in that she simply wanted to fight in the upcoming war.
Still, she would be lying if she said that it didn't bother her even a little that Souma wasn't willing to try out anything new, and it frustrated her more that she simply didn't know how to go forward with him, as she feared that anything she would try would be faced with rejection. However, it wasn't that Souma wasn't willing, but rather just completely awkward when it came to these types of topics, and simply didn't know how to properly communicate in the bedroom.
Brushing those thoughts aside, Souma looked over at his fiancée and smiled before resolving himself to wake up the princess. On the rare occasions, like today, where he would wake up before her, he always enjoyed looking at her sleeping face, but if he let her sleep in, he wouldn't hear the end of it. He made that mistake once before, and… well the two got off to a rocky start that morning.
He gently shook her a couple times, and she groaned in response. This went on for a few more seconds before she finally opened her eyes, looked at him, then yawned and stretched. After she sat up, she said, "Good morning, Souma."
"Morning, sleepyhead. Slept well enough?"
She hummed in affirmation, and then outstretched her arms and said, "Kiss."
"Not right now. Your breath stinks."
It wasn't that Souma didn't love her, but he seriously took for granted just how nice the convenience of toothpaste is back on Earth. Bad breath was something he didn't even know would irk him so much until he came to this world.
Liscia pouted a bit but recovered quite quickly and the two started to get ready for the day.
"Is there just more paperwork for you to do today? Or are you headed out?"
Souma responded, "I'm going to check on how the main road is going today. Tomoe was able to talk to some rhinoceroses and they are greatly helping the royal army in their job of making a main road that will go through the country."
It should be noted that the rhinos Souma was referring to weren't the normal size that most people would be used to, but rather giant monsters that more closely resembled earth dragons, and were amazing for these kinds of manual labor jobs.
Liscia, hearing him, sighed dejectedly. "I still don't know what you're doing having the royal army do these sorts of jobs."
"Well, it's because we have them and they are available, and most of the construction guild is currently working on the new port city. Besides, with Kaede there, the progress on the road should be going along smoothly."
Liscia shook her head at Souma's explanation. Yes, the logic was sound, but she still had trouble completely wrapping her head around how Souma and Rimuru saw the world. To Liscia, tradition was something that deserved respect, but she also wasn't naïve enough to seriously believe that tradition alone would help them. In fact, without breaking tradition, their nation would still be in steady decline, which is a sharp contrast to how the nation is looking today. Yes, the threat of starvation was still a serious issue, but the people now could see a solid end to it thanks to their efforts of new trade routes, and more importantly, many more staple foods being farmed.
The two continued to get ready for the day, with Liscia using her dressing wardrobe to get dressed and Souma staying in the room. Despite it being an improvement to how she would basically shove him out of the room whenever she needed to get changed, she still wasn't fully comfortable with the idea of seeing her without a bra on.
After they finished getting ready, with Liscia in her regular military uniform and Souma in his outfit that, yet again, made people question if he was the king, they set off and quickly caught the attention of Rimuru, who was also walking to the dining area. This was something that they normally try to avoid in the mornings, as Rimuru was just as bad as Serina when it came to teasing the couple.
Surprisingly, however, he opted out of teasing them, instead just giving the two a normal greeting. "Ah, morning. You two sleep well enough?"
Liscia answered first, "Certainly feels well enou-" before she was interrupted by the sound of her stomach growling.
Meekly, she continued, "I'm just going to go eat some food." And quickly scurried off.
With her gone, it was just the two of them, and apparently, Rimuru decided to shelve the manners he had for the morning. "I'm guessing you two had a pleasantly vanilla night last night?"
Souma looked at him and just sighed. He maintained that position for a few moments before continuing to walk to the cafeteria and said, "It's a bit more complicated than that."
"Oh? Then please enlighten me. Is it something to do with performance issues? Hygiene perhaps?"
Souma promptly stopped in place and spun around to face Rimuru. "No it's… it's something…" Souma sighed again to collect himself and continued, "Quite frankly, I'm terrified."
Rimuru looked at the man who was, again, starting to act his age. He thought it might be something that he was simply overthinking, as when he was that age, he remembered being a young and stupid nineteen-year-old who would overthink things to the point where nothing would get done.
"What are you terrified about, exactly? I understand if you're reluctant to have sex, but at the very least, you need to be able to communicate with Liscia properly about that."
Souma sighed again and gathered himself in order to ask him a proper question. "Look, I obviously want to advance our relationship, but I'm completely out of my depth when it comes to doing that. Like, for just about everything else, I can either formulate a plan, or when push comes to shove, I can improvise something. I can live with making mistakes, but I don't want this to be uncomfortable for her. How did you get the ball rolling in your relationship with Testa? And how can I do something similar?"
As Rimuru suspected, it was something stupid. Or rather, because Souma lacked experience in this particular subject, instead of asking for help, he resorted to doing things his way, which simply wasn't working in this case. Ask just about any person, and they will tell you that while it is nice to get everything picture perfect, firstly, things rarely go the way you expect them, and secondly, it's far better to just act on a plan of action, even if there are plenty of flaws in it, rather than constantly thinking up new ways to improve it and never act on it in the first place. After all, you could always amend the plan later on down the line.
"Well, you could always start off with bathing together. In my experience, things just about always escalate from there."
However, when he gave his idea, Souma gave a hopeless smile. This was when Rimuru realized that there was something seriously missing from their relationship. "Wait… Souma. Don't tell me that you haven't even seen her naked yet, right?"
Souma's reluctance to answer gave him all the information that he needed to know. "Oh boy. Things are quite a bit worse than I thought. We need to schedule an intervention immediately."
Just as Rimuru was about to walk off, Souma stopped him. "Wait! Hold on a sec! There's… something else."
"What else is there? You both clearly want things to change. At the very least, Liscia wouldn't let you sleep in her room if she wasn't comfortable with you. And besides, she was the one who essentially made the first move."
"It's… it's something more serious than that." Souma steeled himself, looked Rimuru straight in the eye, and said, "You have sex with Testa and Hinata quite a bit, correct?"
Rimuru was a bit confused with the way this conversation was going, but nonetheless answered, "Yes? Practically every day. Is there something about it?"
"Well, aren't you worried about getting them pregnant?"
Rimuru thought about the question for a bit. Pregnancy among the harem was, and still is, quite a hot topic, though was spoken in hushed whispers. The reason being that Rimuru himself wasn't super ecstatic about having kids. It wasn't that he didn't like kids, far from it, but there were quite a few different ways he felt about it.
First and foremost, and this was a big reason why beings of his caliber rarely had kids, was that they were huge liabilities. While he was able to fix the issue of losing strength when it came to having kids, much in the cases of Souei's and Benimaru's kids, this didn't stop the core issue that his enemies would be more than happy to use his kids against him. Even though he, and Tempest as a whole, were highly respected, and despite his intelligence force keeping tabs on virtually the entire world, his paranoid nature would kick into overdrive when it came to any enemies that would threaten to harm them, and while he was confident that any of his executives could easily fend for themselves, children were a very different story.
Of course, from a logical standpoint, he understood that if their enemies really wanted to hurt them, they would have long since targeted Benimaru's or Souei's kids before they had the chance to grow up. Still, that didn't completely assuage his paranoia.
Secondly, and the main excuse that he has been using for now, was that he was far too busy.
To be fair, it was a plausible reason. From practically sunrise to sunset, he was always doing something, whether it be overlooking a particular project, approving documents and building permits, national events, the Octogram, and a bunch of other things that take up his time. He sure as hell wanted to be there for his kids, and he believed that his current lifestyle simply didn't permit him to take such an extended break. Sure, he could always split himself up, but he was certain that if he wasn't needed at some particular instance, his presence was sure as hell needed somewhere else.
Something that he just seemed to overlook, or perhaps just straight up denied, was the fact that there was rarely a 'good time' to have kids. He did, in fact, know of the joys of parenthood, along with the struggles that came along with it. When he revived his human self, his ever-faithful companion took it upon herself to develop a human body to inhabit and promptly declared herself his wife under the reasoning that no other woman deserved him. At the very least, it was a way for her to keep a part of Rimuru, or rather Satoru, all to herself.
With the human version of Ciel, he fathered two kids, both now currently about to enter their 6th year of school. While Satoru and Rimuru didn't stay in contact due to them being in different worlds, Manas Ciel was able to periodically link up their memories and were able to update each other on what was going on in their respective worlds.
While Rimuru was thinking about his kids, he realized that it might be a good idea to answer Souma's question, and said, "A bit, I guess? It's somewhat of a complicated situation, but I can definitely see where you are coming from. Being a parent can completely change your perspective."
Of course, there was actually no danger of them getting pregnant if Rimuru didn't wish for it, but that couldn't really be explained without revealing important information about himself. There was no way Souma would buy the excuse that they basically had a form of birth control in this era.
Souma heard Rimuru's answer, and while he could agree with the sentiment, as it has been told multiple times by his grandparents, it wasn't the case he was trying to make. "While I agree, that isn't what I'm serious about."
"Oh? Then what is it?"
"The thing that I'm worried about, and the thing that you should definitely be worried about, is the abysmal birth rate in this world. Currently, Liscia doesn't want kids because of the upcoming war, but even if that weren't an issue, I still wouldn't want to have kids thanks to how high the mortality rate for infants and mothers are right after giving birth."
His point caused Rimuru to completely stop in his tracts. Diseases were absolutely a vicious thing, but they were something that Rimuru and those close to him just didn't have to worry about. Even if someone completely human like Mjöllmile were to get seriously ill, there is no shortage of people who could pretty much wave the disease away from him. Since it was something so far out of his radar, not even Ciel was prepared to take it into account.
Currently, the cover they were going with were humans with above-average abilities, but humans, nonetheless. Of course they would have to worry about things like disease and infant mortality, especially with the rate being at damn near a third of all births. The simple reason for this was that germ theory and bacteria weren't even a thing that people took into consideration, save for the Three-Eyed Race, and this led to such a horrific mortality rate.
The only unfortunate thing for Rimuru was that this was yet another thing that he would have to either take into account or make some excuse as to why he didn't have to worry about it. Currently, he was thinking about just saying that Testa could deal with it, but that ran the issue of Souma asking her to be a registered healer. Additionally, that might create other issues with the Orthodox Papal State, which was a country that, unsurprisingly, had religion and tradition run deep in their roots. If Testa were to get too much notoriety as a healer, the people might begin to call her a saint, and as hilarious as that would be, it would only cause further problems.
In the end, Rimuru just said that he would be more careful. However, despite being done with the heavy topic, he still wanted to discuss Souma's and Liscia's relationship issues. "We are still going to have that intervention."
Souma politely refused. "You really don't have to."
"Oh, I insist."
"Please, I wouldn't want to burden you with our problems."
"Believe me, it is no burden to me. We all just want what's best for this country, and that starts with a stable relationship between the king and future queen."
In the end, Souma relented on the silent pressure that Rimuru was exerting with his words, and so they were to have said intervention tonight. With that out of the way, the two walked to the cafeteria and enjoyed breakfast with everyone else there.
After they all had breakfast, Rimuru, Hinata, and Testa took some time to talk amongst themselves about what they wanted to do for the day. The current discussion was about whether they wanted to join Souma in overseeing the construction of the road that was being built. While Rimuru didn't really have any interest in doing so, Hinata was set on something else.
"I just want to get out for a little. We've kind of been cooped up for the past couple months not really doing anything."
Rimuru could understand where she was coming from, but retorted, "If you want to go, feel free. I'm not particularly interested in just overseeing the construction, and I've already given my tips on what Souma needs to do."
"So, you're just going to be lame and stay indoors like some sort of NEET?"
He took mild offence to this. "Oi. Don't treat me like that otaku dragon or fairy. I still have a class to teach. If I want to get out, I'll get out. I just don't want to go today."
With her light teasing failed, and mainly because she didn't want to waste the effort to try and convince him since Souma and the others were set to leave soon, she turned towards Testa and said, "Well, what about you? There's not going to be much for you to do if you just stay at the castle. Want to come with?"
Though she phrased it as a question, she was secretly hoping that Testa would agree to join her. The issue with her position as a bodyguard is that it limited the things that she could do, as if she wasn't around at least one of the two, she would almost certainly arouse suspicion. Fortunately, it seemed that Testa was also not very fond of sitting around and not doing much. Most of her time has been spent either organizing the library, occasionally helping Souma with the almost obscene level of work he was going through, or chatting with the other people like Liscia, Aisha, and in rare cases, Hakuya.
"Hmm. I suppose. It's only supposed to be a day trip, right?"
"I think so. Souma wanted to do something else as well, but if it winds up being too boring, we can always just come back, or just find something else to do."
Testa hummed and nodded in affirmation, and just as Hinata was about to leave, she turned back towards Rimuru and said, "You sure you don't want to go? Last chance."
Rimuru gave a slight chuckle and just said, "Have fun. Let me know if anything interesting happens."
"Suit yourself."
He gave a kiss to both of them and saw them off along with Souma, Liscia, and Aisha. Afterwards, he got back to his room to prepare for the rest of the day teaching.
As the day started to warm up, this brought with it the gentle spring breeze that was so appealing to the masses, especially to those who were working in these conditions. One such worker was Halbert, who was recently transferred over to the royal army. They were tasked with building a new road, much to his chagrin, and since he wasn't accustomed to how the royal army was being used nowadays, complaints spewed left and right from him, and since he didn't want to piss off the rest of the army, the only person who got to hear them was, unfortunately for her, his childhood friend, Kaede.
Who was also annoyingly above him in rank and was having absolutely nothing to do with his grievances.
"Complaining won't make your job any easier, you know. This is also something that is beneficial for the country as a whole, and the sooner we get this done, the sooner that we can all go back to resting."
Hal was currently chatting with Kaede on one of his sanctioned breaks during the day. Something that he was immensely grateful for Souma implementing, as constant physical work, while enjoyable to him, didn't come without its tolls. "Yeah, but why can't we just pay other people to do it? Why is it us?"
"Well, in case you've forgotten, most of the craftsmen's guild are working on the new port city, you know. What would you have them do? Duplicate themselves?"
He groaned at her logical answer. "Even still, don't you have earth magic? Can't you use that to make our jobs easier?"
"I certainly could. However, I also have a limited amount of magic that I can use, you know. What happens if there is a tall hill or mountain? Are you going to use those muscles of yours to bore through it?"
With his attempt at making his life easier shot to bits, he lamented, "So, we're just being used as cheap labor then, huh?"
Hearing this, in a half-hearted attempt to conceal her irritating smug look, she put her hand over her mouth and said, "Well, I don't know about you, but I am paid quite well, you know. It's pretty nice being in my position." She was about to leave it at that, but seeing his annoyed look, decided to add on, "Oh dear me. I believe that your break is over, you know. Better get back to work."
"Wait! No, no, no! I just started it! There is no way that it's been fifteen minutes already!"
She simply turned her head the other way at his words, clearly enjoying his frustration. As she was about to turn back to toy with him more, she saw it. Or rather, she saw them. Even though this was a road that they were building, people would still walk around it from time to time and see how it was being built, which they almost unilaterally thanked them for, as it would make any trips down that path much easier. However, this was very different, as instead of a random passerby, she saw an entire convoy that consisted of a double-horse drawn carriage and multiple horses surrounding it.
When Hal finally stopped complaining to look towards what she was looking at, he briefly became entranced. Though it was only a short few seconds, it still caught the attention of Kaede, who decided to pinch him on his triceps.
"Ow! What was that for?!"
It may have been petty, but she felt that it was necessary. After all, the person who he was entranced by, who was still a solid fifty meters away, was none other than Testa. It annoyed her still that she couldn't really blame him too much, as along with him, almost every man, and even some women who laid eyes on her would usually give more than just a passing glance. Still, there was something that most men paid attention to, and something that she was both immensely grateful for and made sure to engrave into Hal's mind.
"She's taken, you know."
He grumbled, "I know she's taken."
Something that he wished she'd understand is that he just appreciated beauty. If he got the chance to be with her, would he? That would heavily depend on the kind of person she was. Besides, as Kaede so graciously pointed out, she was taken.
However, something that he sometimes just forgot, was that Kaede liked him. In fact, the feeling was mutual, but so far, no real progress has been made on that front. Initially, it was because they were in separate armies, and rarely had time to be together after graduating from the academy. Now, however, whenever he thought to approach, he'd manage to always overthink his way out of it. It certainly didn't help that the rest of the battalion that she led also pined for her, but they didn't approach for a different reason, in part due to their respect for her, and also because if she reported it to Ludwin, they would find themselves quickly out of a job.
Before he could complicate matters any further, Kaede told him to get on his feet and greet the king and the coming party, and promptly led by example. As soon as they got to the king and his entourage, she bowed down and said, "Hello, sire. To what do we owe the pleasure of your visit?"
A lot of emotions were flowing through Souma, but the most prominent among them was confusion. Trying to remedy the awkward nature, he said, "You can skip the formalities."
After sensing his confusion and hearing his response, Hal took a more casual approach and said, "Let's try that again. What brings you here, your highness?"
Though Souma looked far more relieved at the young man's way of phrasing the question, he still found something a bit… off.
"You two can feel free to call me Souma."
Objections started raising from the two of them. Before they could get anywhere, however, he repeated, "Just Souma."
Though Hal felt plenty relieved of the fact that Souma just wished to be called by name, as he still had some apprehensions about showing such formalities to the king thanks to his time in Duke Carmine's army, it would still take some time getting used to outside of public situations. Despite that, once, again, somehow with more stiff approach than even Kaede, he asked, "What… brings you here today, Souma?"
With the stares he was receiving from Aisha and Liscia, he purposely coughed and said, "I'm just here to check on the progress of the road."
Kaede and Hal were flabbergasted at his response. This was something that was normally done by someone way down on the totem pole, certainly not by the king himself. Hell, it was probably a nightmare just to get the king outside the castle gates for such a reason.
Although, Kaede thought, knowing how the new king- Souma, acts, it probably isn't such a surprise.
Though it seemed, at least to Kaede, that Souma still had a bit more to say, Hal decided to step in. "Well, as you can see, it's going quite well. We're all breaking our backs here, so I hope it'll become useful."
That little quip earned him an amused look from Souma and an angry glare from Aisha. However, since it was Souma himself who told him to skip the formalities, Hal felt that he only had himself to blame. What he has yet to learn, regrettably enough, is that while Souma didn't have much in the way of physical prowess, which is one of the reasons as to why Hal doesn't respect him too much, he could run circles around him with his intellect.
Fortunately for him, Souma decided not to humiliate him too bad. "Well, I imagine it is already becoming useful, seeing as I took the road to get here. Additionally, the villages that you have already connected via this road are making use of it in supplying your food, no? What else… oh! How about the fact that instead of letting all the food that these villages farm go to waste thanks to a lack of transportation, they can instead sell it to the markets in the bigger cities, both helping the economy and food shortage? That useful enough for you?"
This time, it was Hal's turn to give him a dirty look, while Aisha and Liscia gave a smug grin. However, what probably hurt him the most was the amused look that Testa was giving him. In an attempt to save what was left of his dignity, he mumbled, "Yeah, that makes sense."
Before anyone could say anything else, however, he continued, "By the way, was there anything else you came here for?"
"I'm glad you asked," came the reply. "I was hoping to use you guys as a test for my new product."
"Hold on a sec. Are we your new test subjects now?"
"It involves food. Gelin noodles to be exact."
"Understood," came the immediate response.
It should be noted that Hal was absolutely not in it for the food, but rather because it was an order from the king. Something that couldn't be helped. He couldn't be bribed by something that was easily bought from the nearest restaurant, as gelin noodles were both cheap and easily supplied thanks to how many slimes there were in the world.
"Good. Do you also want to try, Kaede?"
Kaede practically beamed at the opportunity. "Yes!"
"Good then. Follow me."
Right as he was saying that, Hal noticed it. Or rather, he noticed Testa immediately turning her head to look away and at the sky, as if she saw a bird flying away. He tried to see what caught her attention, but to no avail. Thinking that she may have just heard something, he discarded whatever it was that caught her attention and eagerly followed Souma.
What Souma revealed to them was something that was oh so familiar to Hinata, and something that she had to try hard not to immediately recognize on sight. For it was incredibly similar to instant ramen. Confirming her thoughts, Souma opened up the package and exclaimed, "This is what I like to call 'instant gelin.' All it takes is some hot water, some spices and sauce, and voila! Gelin on the go."
Handing it over to each of them, Hal and Aisha specifically enjoyed the noodles. As they were enjoying the noodles, Souma asked, "Would either of you like to show us around a bit? I'd like to show Liscia and Testa the process of what we are doing here exactly."
Though Testa knew exactly what the process was in building roads, she just shrugged her shoulders and went along with it anyway. Hinata was mostly in the same boat, just content to enjoy the outdoors and doing something outside of sparring for a change.
Hal saw a chance to redeem his image with Souma's inquiry and wasted no time in answering his question. "Right. Let's go take a little tour."
As they were walking around, the crew from the castle got to see firsthand the various things that were going on in the process of building the new road. By far the most impressive up close were the rhinos, who were towering in size compared to them. Pulling weight that few creatures could compete with, they were responsible for bringing supplies to and from the warehouses near the castle town. Additionally, their shockingly gentle nature meant that they were excellent for this kind of work. Having Tomoe involved in being able to talk to them just sealed the deal in getting as many as they could, and they currently had several working in tandem with the soldiers.
The next major point of interest was something Liscia could only describe as sludge. "What… is that? It looks weird."
Souma replied, "That is what we were just riding on. Once the dirt gets properly smoothed out, we dump this on the dirt, pave it, and it hardens. From my world it's called concrete. However, since we don't have the technology to make it here, Rimuru was able to concoct something else that is both affordable and durable. This is the result."
Testa ever so subtly pumped out her chest, and Hinata, catching up on this, lightly elbowed her in the side. Afterwards, they all made their way to see the other various points, and Aisha pointed out the trees that were being used emitted a certain scent that the monsters of this world weren't very fond of. Souma explained that the reason for this was to effectively thin out the monster attacks to the point that they were manageable, instead of diverting them completely and having them attack something else. At the very least, patrols and adventurers would be frequenting this road quite a bit, so it was the best defense they could currently put up until they could get proper sentries stationed.
It was at this moment that a certain bird popped into view, and it so happened that Aisha was able to look directly at it. From the looks of it, it was quite small, but it was clear that it was going right towards her, almost to the point of looking like it was about to divebomb her. Fortunately, no such thing occurred, but she was able to identify the kind of bird it was before it landed on her shoulder, and if her face was anything to go by, it wasn't pretty.
The kind of bird that was used was a messenger kui, and while not rare, was highly sought-after thanks both to the incredible intelligence it had for its kind, and because it could follow instructions to go to locations quite well along with the ability to detect the subtle magic waves that its master let out over distances, it was an amazing and quick way of communicating. Unfortunately, a bird was still a bird, and often found itself hunted by larger predators hailing from the sky.
In any case, the reason for Aisha's worried look was mainly due to the fact that the only time she has seen that bird used in her village was for emergencies. Something like the death of a family member or a hunt gone wrong. For the most part, they have communicated through more traditional means such as horses.
As soon as she unfurled the parchment attached to the leg of the kui, she had a horrified look and dropped the letter, as if she had seen a ghost.
It's not true, right? It can't be…