Morning came.
After the Direwolves were defeated we had a few problems.
First of all since the goblins homes were used to build the fence they now had nowhere to sleep. Second, with the Direwolves joining us we now had about eighty more mouths to feed around here.
I asked Rimuru what he was going to do about it but he said he'd think about it in the morning. He ordered the goblins to camp out next to the fire, told the wolves to go on standby around the village, and called it a night.
'Typical.'
I spent the whole night feeding the flame as everyone slept. Although the scene was a bit enjoyable, a sleeping village below me and a shining moon above me.
'I wish I could have reincarnated with my camera to take a picture of it all.'
"Rimuru, it's morning now! What are we going to do." My voice came out in a high pitch, this was actually the first time I had heard my own voice. I communicated telepathically all the time I forgot what it feels like to speak.
"Wow that's the first time I'm hearing you speak with your voice, I was beginning to think you'd forgotten how to speak."
I rolled my eyes, "Anyway, answer the question." I floated flat on my stomach kicking my legs.
"Right, so, what we are going to do is let the goblins take care of the direwolves! Perfect!" A small slime hand poked out of his body and gave an enthusiastic thumbs up.
We had a total of seventy-two goblins left in fighting shape. No casualties from yesterday. At most, a few scratches.
Meanwhile, we had eighty-one surviving direwolves waiting outside the town fence—some wounded, but none so badly that a recovery potion didn't prop them right back up.
They could've recovered themselves, I reckoned, with their intrinsic healing skills.
The morning began with us lining up the goblins who were awake. The children and elderly watched from the side. They couldn't help but stick out, given the lack of any homes to hang out in.
Next to us was the village elder. He wanted to help out somehow, I guess, but there wasn't much an old goblin geezer could do for us.
I heard Rimuru having a mental rant about charming village princesses and riding into the sunset or something similar so I did my job to reign him in by kicking him a few kilometres away from the village like a ball. I added extra wind power in the kick to get my point across.
As the goblins and direwolves watched Rimuru flying high and out of sight I acted as if it was a mistake framing it as a 'slight slip of the leg due to impure thoughts'. They didn't seem to understand so I left it at that.
Once the Perverted Old Man returned we returned to business.
In front of us stood a line of goblins, I summoned the direwolves. "Um, okay," I began, "From now on, we're going to have you all form pairs and live with each other, all right?"
Then I gauged the response. I didn't get much of one. They were waiting for me to continue, I guessed, not making a single sound as they stared at me.
Nobody seemed to openly grimace at the idea of pairing up, at least, so I assumed I was on decent enough ground.
"Uh, do you understand what I mean? Like, groups of two, okay? Get to it!"
The moment I finished speaking, the goblins and the direwolves began exchanging glances with whoever was in front of them. Slowly and meekly, they followed my order.
It was a strange feeling being responsible for a whole village of people the only person I was responsible for was me, and I died! I feel like I shouldn't have this job to be honest.
"Yep! That's right! Yesterday's enemy is today's friend, and all that." Rimuru piped up besides me interrupting my thoughts.
They had to learn that the hard way, but at least everyone was on board.
'Hang on, do any of these guys have names at all? How are they supposed to call for each other and stuff?' Rimuru turned towards me.
I shrugged.
"Elder," Rimuru said as I watched the pairing process unfold to my side, "It's too inconvenient for me to refer to you and your people. I'd like to give names to you all. Would that be all right?"
Everyone must have heard him somehow. Right at the word names, every single one of them was locked on to us—even the non fighting goblins, clearly thrown by this turn of events.
"Are…are you sure…?" the elder timidly asked.
'Are they really that excited about getting names?' He questioned.
'Well when Veldora gave us names he made it seem important so named monsters must be rare.' I crossed my arms leaning back on air.
'I guess being in a different world means you gotta follow different rules.' I nodded my head to the statement.
"Y-yeah, um… If it's not a problem, I'd like to give out some names?"
It was as if he'd simultaneously blown the minds of every goblin on the premises. Each one erupted into enthusiastic cheering.
What in the hell? It's as if they all just hit the lottery or something. If getting a name makes them that happy, why don't they just do it themselves?
Rimuru started with the elder, asking him what his son's name was. He had been the sole named goblin in the village, now sadly passed. It was "Rigur," apparently.
So he added a d on the end and named the elder "Rigurd."
I asked why was up with the uninspired name and he answered, "No particular reason for it—it just sounded nice." I facepalmed as the casual tone he spoke with when this was a serious matter.
"If your son was here," Rimuru joked, "You could have him state his name and just kinda add d to the end of it, y'see?"
No one laughed. They thought he was serious. "I… I cannot express my gratitude enough," he blubbered, "For being granted permission to take on my son's name!"
'Yeah, great. I'm just shooting from the hip here, you know.'
I almost felt guilty watching this. Everything we did was an act of greatness to them. We could send them to their deaths and they'd die happy knowing they served us. What a pathetic yet tragic existence they lead.
So on he went, down the whole line. He also did the rest of the onlookers while he was at it, having families figure out their names together and coming up with whatever for the orphans and singles in the village.
They aren't expecting to, like, keep recycling these names for generations to come, are they? If Rigurd has a grandson, maybe he could start calling himself "Rigurdd." Or if he has a great-grandson, he could be "Rigurddd" and "Rigurd" then gets passed on to the youngest generation. Something like
that?
Pretty random, maybe, but how else do family traditions ever get started?
"Sir Rimuru," the newly christened Rigurd plaintively asked, "we are so, so appreciative of this, but…are… Are you sure?"
"About what?"
"I mean, I am fully aware of the extent of your magical powers, Sir Rimuru, but…providing all of these names in one go… Will you be all right?"
'What's he talking about? I'm just handing out names to folks.'
I side eyed him. Should I tell him his magicules are draining with each naming? Nah, he'll probably figure it out.
"Mm?" I replied. "No, no problem, I don't think." Then I went back to it. Rigurd raised his eyebrows for a moment, but was paid him no further mind.
Once he was done with the goblins, it was time to move on to the direwolves. Although I remained passive on the goblins I was interested in the direwolves so I got closer to discuss it with Rimuru.
We decided that we would divide them into two sections one half will be Rimuru's and the other half mine. This was done by using my Divergence skill to seperate the packs natural link that they all possessed to each other, basically the pack acts as one so I turned that one into two. Like cutting a worm in half and getting two worms instead.
The new leader of Rimuru's pack would be the son of the old one—just as strong (and strong willed) as his father, and already looking every bit as stately.
'Hmm. How about Ranga? That combines the Japanese characters for storm and fang into one peppy little word.'
'Considering the horrible names you gave the goblins that's actually decent, but only because the bar has reached subatomic level of low.'
The moment he named him Ranga, I began to feel as if practically all the magicules flowing through Rimuru's body were draining out of it.
'What… What's going on? It was a fatigue like none I'd felt before.'
He slowly faded into sleep mode after that.
'I guess that was his limit. I'll have to survive for a while without his magicules but at least I have this magic body to keep me stable for a week or so.'
I handed Rimuru over to one of the goblins so that they could take care of him.
Once Rimuru was well, I attended to my half of the pack. The leader I chose was a white wolf, the only one in the pack who had completely white fur. She was serene and elegant for a wolf and she reminded me of the moonlight.
I thought of the name Chang'e the immortal who lives in the moon in Chinese mythology. As I gave her the name I felt my magicules drain a bit but not to the extent that I saw in Rimuru.
With Rimuru out of commission and everyone named I had to lead everyone in the village. It was only mid day when we finished the naming so we still had time to work.
I organised a group of Goblins and wolves that would go out and hunt for food, I made Rigur the leader of this group and sent them off, not before a whole declaration of absolute reverence and loyalty. I also instructed Ranga to go with them for extra security.
'These guys are so weird.' I sighed as I watched them leave.
Next I formed a group of scouts led by a goblin named Gobta, he seemed a bit 'not all there' but I could tell he had potential. I sent Chang'e to watch over them.
With that covered I moved on to the interior of the village. Since their homes were torn down there wasn't a place the young and elderly could sit.
'I don't know the first thing about construction so I won't touch that, but I could use my Elemental Operation Skill to change the terrain.'
This was the first time I used Earth and Nature magic. In the centre of the Village I focused on absorbing the surrounding magicules in the area and turning it into Elemental Energy, I then channelled this energy into the very ground itself making lush grass grow everywhere.
I manipulated the earth to make mud huts, nothing to fancy just something hat with expel heat during the day and keep it in during the night.
I then ordered the remaining goblins to move their belongs which were very few I to their new homes. I wish I could do more but that would require a lot of magicules I do not possess at the moment.
With nothing else to do I spent my time analysing the goblins and direwolves. My memory skill came in handy giving me their complete biological makeup. I studied everyting about them from their skin to their muscles.
I analysed the fur of the direwolves which had very good defensive capabilities. I theorised that it could be used as padding for armour if we could get enough of it but that was a thought for another time.
The scouting team and hunting team returned later on.
'Master we have returned,' Chang'e transmitted the Telepathic message of their return before they entered the village.
I didn't really feel comfortable being called master but all of them insist on calling me that.
'Good anything to report?' I floated closer to them.
'Nothing, of value appeared.' She bowed her head respectfully.
'Okay, good work.' I then turned towards the hunting team with the food they captured.
Most of were small creatures however there were some the size of the direwolves themselves.
'Good job everyone, you can leave the meat over there and I'll prepare it.' I pointed over to a flat area of stone. I had created it specifically for this.
Once the meat was placed on the area I began working. The first with I did was remove the hides which wasn't difficult using Divergence on the lowest setting possible. I hung all the fresh hides and began separating the meat into pieces.
I lay all the meat on the stones and used fire magic to roast them. I used the stones which were resistant to high temperatures and heated them up, the meat on top of it sizzled as the oils burned off of it. I had made a sort of frying pan.
I gathered everyone around and distributed the meat among everyone. Since I didn't need to eat I let them eat all the meat themselves.
'I should invest in fruits and vegetables, although monsters don't really care much about nutrition and balanced diets it didn't hurt to have variety.'
The day went by surprisingly smoothly. I felt as if I had accomplished a lot even in just a day.
At night I stared at the moon light as everyone went to sleep. There were a few dire wolves and goblins who had stayed in the village during the day who took up night duty still awake.
But everything was silent as I gazed at the moon contemplating what I should do tomorrow.