5 Chapter 5

Me and Rimuru were currently standing in front of a crowd of goblins and direwolves. They were standing around waiting for Rimuru to address them all since he is now the de facto leader of this village. Well, I guess me and him share power so we're like co-leaders, or if you wanna get technical, it would be a diarchy. 

"Ok everyone listen up! The direwolves are now part of our group! They will be our friends and allies from now on!" He sounded confident there. That's a good sign.

"What I want you all to do is get together in groups of two one goblin and one direwolf!"

The goblins and direwolves, to my surprise, quickly got together in pairs. I thought it would have taken a bit longer considering their history with goblins dying from the jaws of a direwolf. After they paired up, only the future named Ranga was left, so it was clear RImuru still gets his best doggo. 

I'm surprised there's no direwolf for me. Not that it matters, since when we go to Dwargon, I can easily run with them and keep up. 

"Ok from now on you guys are a team! So make sure you guys have look out for each other! We'll form groups for hunting, clothing, and building." I can see his thought process. He's going down a list of things in his mind to check off and while it may work here in this situation, when it comes time to give some kind of formal speech it will be a disaster. 

"By the way. Do any of you guys have names? Cause it's hard to identify all of you."

The goblin chief spoke up. "Sir Rimuru, we do not have any names. It's an uncommon sight to find a monster with a name. It makes a monster stronger when they receive a name."

"Hmm, I'll give all of you guys a name. How does that sound?" All the goblins and direwolves immediately became shocked.

"Sir Rimuru, are you truly sure you want to give us all a name? I know you have a lot of magical energy, but it's still a risk." The goblin chief gave what would have been a good warning to any other monster, but this is Rimuru we're talking about. If I didn't know he had Veldora inside him acting as a glorified magicule battery I would have put a stop to him immediately. 

"Yeah, I'll give you all names. It's no problem and I'm fine with it." He'll be fine until he names Ranga.

"We are truly thankful Sir Rimuru." I know the goblins are trying to be respectful, but something about them calling him "Sir" is sort of ticking me off. He's not a knight nor did he go through any sort of ceremony or ritual for knighthood. It seems my King of Knights skill is affecting me more than I thought. It's not a personality change it's more like a desire to do things the "right way". I can just ignore it if I want to.

Rimuru then proceeded to give name to all the goblins. He names the chief Rigurd, his other son Rigur, and the rest some form of "gob" followed by random letters. I knew his naming sense was kind of…sub-par to say the least, but hearing it and seeing it was a different feeling. I felt second-hand embarrassment from the names he was giving out. 

"Hey Artoria, do you want to name some goblins or at least some direwolves?"

"No, I do not. I'm not against naming, but I'm more 'selective' with the monsters I name, even if I haven't named any monsters so far."

"Oh ok, I'll get to naming the direwolves then." He turned to the pack leader's son and after thinking for a few seconds he named him. "Your name will be Ranga!"

Rimuru immediately started freaking out. He became more gooey and he was losing his shape. It's like he was melting and becoming a puddle of water. 

The goblins and direwolves were getting all worried and freaking out. They were crying out about his health and whatnot so I stepped in to calm the entire situation.

"Everyone calm down. He's not in any danger. He just exhausted his magicule capacity. He'll be good as new in about three days. We just need to make sure nothing from the outside affects him and he'll be fine." My explanation worked well in calming them down, no doubt due to me being powerful and also cause I healed some of the ones who were named, so they have some baseline of trust. 

I picked up Rimuru and placed him inside the chief's building. Normally I would wrap someone up and try to keep them warm, but he's a slime. His passive resistance will keep him in good shape.

I came out of the building and saw that all of the goblins and direwolves were gathered in front of me. "I know you all are worried, but there's really nothing to worry about. If it makes any of you feel better, feel free to watch over him until he wakes up. It's only three days. It will pass by faster the less you worry about it." 

Ranga immediately sat down in front of the hut, before just deciding to lay down. Seems he decided to be a self-proclaimed guard dog. The others just looked towards me waiting for further instruction. 

'Well, I might as well get used to doing some leadership. I'll let Rimuru do that later though. I don't want endless paperwork. I'm content being a figure of worship. I don't think goddesses need to do paperwork. I just need to answer prayers or something.'

/\/\/\/\/\

(3 days later)

Not a lot happened these three days. It was just me managing the hunting group. I accompanied them on a few expeditions, but that was mainly just me guarding over them. I would make sure to take care of any monster that was out of their control and to see if they knew what they were doing.

They were good for what their current purpose was, which was to hunt. The direwolves did most of the work. The goblins couldn't do much since their weapons were just too bad, but I appreciate their efforts nonetheless.

As for the other parts of the village, there wasn't much for me to do in terms of some kind of government system. None of the goblins knew enough technical skills needed for the development of a village, so the only thing for me to "govern" was any hunting expeditions and some foraging groups. None of the goblins or direwolves were starving and that's all I could ask for considering the situation we were in. 

I would try training them, but that's not necessary, for now at least. There's also no proper equipment to train with. Even if I used a stick to try to train them, I would still be able to break any swords they used. 

One last thing to mention was the goblins and direwolves evolution. It happened on the first day after Rimuru went to "sleep". It was flashy, to say the least. They all glowed with a bright flash of white light and when it died down they transformed into their new evolutions. It was a short and flashy process, not much to talk about.

Now, I'm here in the chief's hut waiting for Rimuru to get up. It should be any time now, and I'm here by myself and told the others to not enter for any reason. I even had Avalon activated to form a "barrier" around us and stop anyone from just barging in and destroying one of the very precious buildings we have for now. 

I'm looking at you Ranga. 

Ah, I can feel it. His magicules are returning. Universal Sense is kind of strong. 

"I'm back and good as new!" RImuru said out loud as if he just waiting for this moment.

"That's good. Now I need you to get up and hop on out of here and quickly address the goblins and direwolves." I'm trying to rush him cause I can already feel Ranga trying to crash his way in here, but Avalon is stopping him. 

"Why the rush Artoria?"

"Let's just say that our village residents are very enthusiastic about you waking up and want to see you."

"Oh ok. Let's go meet them." 

Once me and Rimuru were outside I deactivated Avalon. Ranga immediately leaped in and threw Rimuru in the air and just bounced him with his nose. It was kind of funny to see.

"Calm down, calm down! Let me down!" His pleas were met with deaf ears as the direwolves and goblins just chanted his name while they kept throwing him up in the air.

/\/\/\/\/\

Once everyone finally calmed down, everyone gathered so RImuru could address them. 

Well, first he had to get used to everyone's new appearance after their evolution. After some explanations, from the now younger and muscled Rigurd, about how names worked we finally got into the main part of this gathering. 

"Alright everyone, as you can see we are all now a part of the same village and team, so to avoid complications and set some guidelines I have three rules for everyone to follow!"

'Ah, the rules he came up with. I'll have to intervene here.'

"First, no attacking humans. Second, no fighting amongst yourselves. Third, don't belittle other races. That's all."

The crowd was mostly quiet no one was saying anything, but at least no one seemed to disagree with Rimuru. At most, they would just question it. Except for me, I was against them, well at least only his first rule. The other two were…fine. 

I've already decided not to get too into the government and politics stuff and instead more into religion, which shouldn't be too hard, all I have to do is say I'm part divine spirit and that I have divinity and boom, we can make a religion out of it. 

That's for a little into the future. Anyway, I need to focus on the rules he set.

"Artoria do you have any rules you want to add or something?"

What a good opportunity. 

"I have some things to say about your first rule. The other two are fine, but your 'no attacking humans' has some problems. Well, just one major problem. You are saying not to attack humans, but leave no room for anything else. You should at least add an exception that does allow it within reason, like in self-defense or other similar cases."

"Oh, that does make sense. Ok everyone, a change to rule one! No attacking humans unless it is in self-defense or protection. We should still be peaceful and welcoming though." 

That was a much better way to word the rule. I would try to do more, but that's Rimuru's job. I'll just sit back and chill while being worshipped and stuff. I just hope they don't get too crazy with it. 

After he said his rules there were some questions here and there. Things like "Why can't we attack humans?" and then Rimuru said, "Because I like humans. That's it.". Some good questions were met with…less-than-satisfactory answers. 

He's lucky they are so loyal to him. It makes his job so much easier when ruling over the forest.

/\/\/\/\/\

When the gathering was over, Rimuru came over to me to catch up with things that had happened when he was asleep. 

"Hey Artoria, how were the goblins and wolves?"

"They were fine. They did alright for what little we had. I just managed the hunting and foraging groups. The people for building and making clothes, I just stopped them and made them do other things. No one here knows the technical skills for that work."

"Where would we find people with those skills then?"

"Go ask Rigurd."

"Hey Rigurd!" Rimuru shouted out loud and almost instantly he appeared before Rimuru.

"What do you need Lord Rimuru." His eyes were literally glowing at being called upon and being able to serve. 

"Rigurd do you know where we can find people who have technical skills to help us build houses and clothes?"

"Well normally we would trade and buy stuff from some merchants that would occasionally pass by here, but if you want to hire someone, the dwarves from Dwargon would make be very helpful." 

Rimuru with his "otakuness" beamed up when dwarves were mentioned.

"Dwarves! Like the famous blacksmiths?"

I don't know why, but when he says it like that it sounds kind of racist. Hmmmmm. Nah, I'm overthinking. 

"Rigurd, do you know the way to Dwargon?"

"I don't, but Gobta does. He's been there before. Do you plan to go there to get Dwarves to help us?"

"Yes, I do Rigurd. I'll take a team of goblins and wolves."

I decided to join in on this. "I'll also join on this trip."

"But someone will need to lead the village while I'm gone."

"Rigurd here can do a good job, and the trip shouldn't take too long. The newly evolved wolves will be able to shorten our travel time by a very significant margin."

"Ok, I'll trust you on this on this. Rigurd you are in charge of the village while we're gone. Make sure to do your best."

"You won't have to worry Lord Rimuru, I will take care of this village with all my power!" His eyes were on fire from his fierce determination and for having a chance to impress Rimuru. 

/\/\/\/\/\ 

Me and Rimuru were currently at the entrance of the village joined by Gobta and Rigur as well as two other goblins.

We were getting ready to head out, but there was one tiny problem.

"Hey Artoria, are you sure you don't want to ride on Ranga with me?" 

That's right. There wasn't another wolf for me to ride on. I already knew this was coming, but it didn't matter to me. 

"Sorry Rimuru, but I'm not interested in you."

"What no! That's now how I meant it!" 

"Then why are you blushing?"

Rimuru was squirming and stuttering trying to come up with something, but it was hard since some of the goblins and wolves were kind of snickering and trying to hold in their laughs out of respect.

"I'm just messing with you Rimuru. Also, you don't need to worry about me not having a wolf. I can easily keep up with you all."

"Uh, are you sure you can? Ranga here brags about his speed and he's the pack leader so,he's faster than a usual Tempest Wolf."

"I already told you. Don't worry about it."

"Alright then. Ok everyone we'll be back as soon as we can! Rigurd, I'm counting on you!"

"I won't let you down Lord Rimuru!"

"Alright let's get going! Gobta, make sure we're heading in the right direction!"

"Yes sir!"

And so, we started our relatively short trip to The Armed Nation of Dwargon.