Along the way to the goblin's village, we learned the truth of their situation. It turned out that they worshiped Big Bro Veldora. When he'd disappeared, the local monsters had become more aggressive, as were the humans who lived outside of the forest.
"Umm… this building is bad, Big Bro." I said aloud when we got to the actual goblin village. It was sticks and twigs, basically, with rotten wood boards held together by nails. A stiff breeze could knock it over with ease. It made me sad to look at. Inside, a really old goblin made us tea as he and Rimuru chatted. I used the big snake's taste buds to try the tea out, but it tasted really bad to the snake, so I only drank a sip, which I used the slime-intrinsic Dissolve skill, which was a part of my Breakdown, to turn it into a handful of extra cells for my regeneration, not that I'd ever needed to regenerate. I made sure that I didn't use any taste buds when I drank the rest of it.
The goblin elder explained his situation to Rimuru and I as Rimuru worked on pushing his magicules back into his body, like I did naturally. Apparently, after their 'god' who I suspected was Veldora, disappeared, the monsters in the forest were basically all vying for dominance. The main aggressor, though, were the direwolves. The same wolves that I'd wanted to eat earlier. They'd already killed quite a few of the goblins from the village, but the number of living goblins and the number of direwolves seemed even. Except for the fact that goblins were F-ranked, maybe an E-rank on a good day, while Direwolves were solid C-rankers. It'd take ten goblins to stand a chance against a single direwolf.
"Big Bro! If these direwolves are trying to hurt the goblins, then I can eat them, right?" I asked. After all, they'd already killed the village elder's son, a named hobgoblin, after all.
"Wait, Risa. If we help you, what do we get from it?" Rimuru asked the goblin.
"Our allegiance! We'll swear you our undying loyalty!"
"Big broo… You said that killing these goblins is mean. If we don't help them, doesn't that make us mean?" I really wanted to eat a direwolf.
"All right. You heard Risa. Your request is granted, we'll help you."
…
The direwolves ruled the plains to the east, preying on merchants heading from the Eastern Empire to the nations surrounding the Forest of Jura. When working in groups, as a pack their rating as monsters changed, showing their real worth only under talented alphas, where they'd be easily rated a B.
Unfortunately, that still wasn't too strong for the Empire. Were they to attempt to actually retaliate against the direwolves, the wolves would have nowhere to hide. Knowing that, the wolves' only choice for expanding their power, getting stronger, was to feed on the monsters of the Forest of Jura. Unfortunately for them, up till now, it'd been under the protection of Veldora. Even sealed, the wolves dared not tread into his domain. Until now.
…
(Rimuru POV)
Bodyguard duty, huh? Honestly, I had no idea what I was doing, so the first thing I did was gather all the goblins capable of fighting. Yeah, not a lot of fighting force here. And the other ten or fifteen goblins were either children or the elderly.
But the way they looked at me… lotta pressure in that gaze. They understood the risks involved here, and they were each willing to die for their village. Collecting my thoughts, I gave my first order.
First, I had Risa make bows and arrows for each of the goblins. With her Processor Unique skill, the weapons that she could make were incomparably better in quality than the crude junk that the other goblins currently had, which she ate in order to improve them. Unfortunately, that meant that she'd be indisposed until the actual battle. Though she had Sage as a subskill of Processor, it wasn't anything like my Great Sage. It simply increased her mental abilities, allowing her to learn faster, memorize things easier, and think faster. Mine was basically a computer that was part of my head.
She could create bows and arrows of great power out of magisteel and sticky steel thread, but it took her genuine effort. Maybe five minutes or so per bow, which wasn't much, but turned into almost seven hours when multiplied by nearly 80. Seven hours of boredom, according to her, but she was a good girl at heart, so saving the goblins was more than enough of a motivator.
Meanwhile, I had a lot to do. Firstly, I slapped some of my excess healing potions onto the wounded goblins. Next, I had the goblins dismantle their houses to create a fence, laying sticky steel thread around it as a trap. By the time night fell, every goblin capable of holding a bow was doing so, with an ample supply of arrows, and the fence was up. We were ready for the battle.
…
(Risa POV)
I hate weapon making. I hate it, I hate it, I HATE IT! Soo boring, doing the same thing over and over again! Making new things is fun, but repeatedly making the same thing, over and over again is a form of torture that I'd never thought possible.
But finally, night fell, and the direwolves surrounded the village. The battle began.
And almost immediately ended.
The arrows wounded a few wolves, but when Big Bro's thread began catching them, the wolves' Alpha decided to make his move, sprinting through Big Bro's thread, destroying it with his teeth as he raced through. But Big Bro ended up catching him in the thread just the same, lopping his head off with a water blade. Then, after a moment, much to my annoyance, Big Bro decided to eat the corpse and transform into a direwolf to threaten the rest of the pack into submission with the Coercion skill.
'We Yield. The pack will now serve you.'
So I don't get to eat a direwolf, then? Buzzkill.