The time until Rimuru left came by pretty fast with all the research I was doing. I spent the entire time as busy as possible with occasional breaks playing with Ranryo. By the time Rimuru left Ingracia I had already gotten close to properly identifying the behavior of a Magicule. Something that I originally thought was impossible as they seem to move around randomly at first glance. However, I never got to do that because the time was up.
During my time in the woods doing my research I sent my one clone, because for some reason Rimuru and my body doubles are limited to one, and sent it to Farmus to look around. They had amounted to a force of about 27,000 to help take down Tempest after Yuuki and Granbell helped kick it off. This is more than enough to fuel two Demon Lord transformations. This is good to know.
With everything as good as they're going to get it's time for it to actually kick off. First, Hinata's fight with Rimuru. I don't know how exactly my presence will affect Rimuru's behavior during that fight. I don't intend to interfere because that would affect my plan in a few key ways. However, if the situation calls for it I'll have to interfere because Rimuru's survival is more important than my growth in power. I can't sacrifice my brother to gain more power, I refuse to do that.
With that I watch as Rimuru leaves Ingracia and says goodbye to the kids. During this little goodbye I see that Chloe still tries to manipulate events so that Hinata's ambush is successful. Good, it seems at least for now she'll do the same things she did in the original.
I watch as Rimuru still follows the same path as in the original and see Hinata standing behind a tree, sword in hand. That's when a Souei clone appears to warn Rimuru about the invasion before he breaks down as Hinata sets up a holy barrier. This is where it starts.
Now, in the best case scenario, Rimuru and Hinata's fight goes the same way or similarly to the original. Rimuru still doesn't have sufficient power to beat Hinata in this fight so this is pretty much a 50-50 shot given how I don't have all the information I need on how Rimuru and Hinata's minds work to predict exactly how this'll happen. In the occasion that Rimuru is going to die I am going to pull out the Adamant Blade and use it's Magicule Disruption abilities to break down the barrier and save Rimuru by teleporting away then manipulate the timing so that he still arrives after the death of someone important in Tempest. That's the ultimate goal here, to give Rimuru a reason to become a Demon Lord.
With that I watch the fight go down. Watching as it happens I see Hinata still go in with the same attitude she did with me. No matter how much Rimuru tries to stop her there's just no negotiating with her so the fight still goes on. Then during a key point where Hinata is a little distracted I see Rimuru drop out of the body and flatten on the ground. That's important but it's still not guaranteed, if Hinata sees him then I'll still need to save him. With that, I continue watching. As Rimuru pulls the [Gluttony] stunt Hinata immediately counters with a Disintegration. Instantly destroying the clone Rimuru made and giving her the idea that she won. As she walks away and disables the barrier, Rimuru leaves unscathed for the most part.
So I didn't have to step in. Good, plan B wasn't the most ideal scenario to act out. With everything in the clear here it's time to go back to Tempest. I can't save Shion but I can lower the amount of casualties and damage to Tempest in this invasion. There are two sides of the capital of Tempest, Rimuru City and Migeru City, the Twin Capitals. The two are connected with a road. Rimuru City is the city from the original, the one that sprung up from the goblin village, Migeru City sprung up around my house and is the sort of production center of Tempest. My main goal here is lowering damage to Migeru City while saving people along the way. I don't want to lose research. While this may lower the numbers of the Yomigaeri in the future it shouldn't be too bad for the military forces of Tempest given what I'm going to do soon.
Teleporting over the cities I watch the invasion occur. Everything goes pretty much the same with the force going in and slaughtering any monster unfortunate enough to get in their path. As this happens I watch Myuran set up a Magicule weakening barrier around Tempest further adding to the chaos.
I watch the fight continue until my cue. Shion's death. The moment She drops I immediately dig into the fight. Surrounding myself with a barrier as I enter to stay strong inside the barrier for longer, I land in front of my lab where Gobzi's Goblin Guard are defending it. With [General's Orders] Gobzi is able to buff up his squad like my [Hive Mind] can. A really strong ability, especially in groups like his Goblin Guard. It's what makes them so strong. However, even then, their team isn't enough to stop the invasion force completely and they are slowly overrun. That is until I show up.
Landing in front of the guard I immediately use [Death Stare] on the confused invaders to kill them all instantly. I turn around and sarcastically say, "Hey Gobzi, looks like I missed something."
Gobzi looks at me and bows, "I apologize, Lord Migeru. Unfortunately we were almost unable to properly defend your lab in your absence."
"Oh, it's really no problem. These aren't really the most optimal circumstances to fight in, you know. I understand why you wouldn't be able to win."
He looks at me like I'm the messiah or something. "Thank you, Lord Migeru! We will never forget your great mercy!"
Haha, okay, sure. "Don't worry about it." I throw healing potions on the members of the Goblin Guard except for Kevin, who for some reason is surrounded by dead soldiers while being completely unscathed. Alright then. Nothing intimidating about that.
Telling them to continue guarding the lab, I fly around killing anyone in Migeru City while flying towards Rimuru City. As I kill the soldiers I destroy their souls with the Adamant Blade just because I don't feel like keeping their souls intact up there with the innocents they killed. Even with those souls gone there's still enough to fuel two Demon Lord evolutions out there anyways. For this little killing spree there's only really one rule. Don't interact with the otherworlders in any way. That could affect the timeline so keeping that in mind I keep my distance while I kill the soldiers that wander too far away. Eventually the invasion force catches on to the suspiciously high amount of missing soldiers forcing them to retreat.
After they leave I land and pretend to have been completely unaware that this was going to happen. Walking up to Shuna who appeared immediately after the attack to treat the wounded I ask her how many died. She says that for now all we know is about 100 people died minimum.
{Answer- 121 have died.}
What the? I swear that tone was a little smug. So 121 died in the attack. Alright then, still waiting for Rimuru I order everyone to start looking for the victims. As soon as I issue that order a growing number of monsters begin work on the finding of bodies while I focus on another thing. Now for...I hear Youm and Grucius yelling in the background at an irritated Benimaru. There it is.
Running into the alley I see Grucius on the ground while Youm, struggling to stay on his feet, begs Benimaru to spare her life. However, Benimaru isn't having any of it and continues to walk forward with his katana at the ready.
Closing the distance I get between the two and release some of my aura shutting everyone up, "Benimaru, I understand what you're doing but for now we can't kill her. It'll only make things harder in the long run. Trust me."
Benimaru lowers his sword and looks on, a little confused but listening to my orders.
I turn around, " Of course, just because I saved your life, you're not off the hook Myulan. Grucius, Youm, you're also coming. Meet me in Rimuru's office," I turn and give a wide smile, "Ring Finger."
She looks on in utter shock at the bomb I dropped. I knew what she was doing all along and could have decided to kill her at any moment for her crimes. That thought alone is terrifying but when she sees that Grucius is way less surprised than you would expect, she starts to catch on. She's not dumb, she knows there's something going on here but she's too scared to ask.
As I walk out of the alley, Rimuru finally arrives, and he doesn't seem too happy. He watches as monsters run around in panic looking for their loved ones, some even finding their own children or parents dead on the street. This is a very gruesome sight to see. I'm not gonna lie, I do feel some mild anger right now, it's not exactly what I want to happen either but I can't imagine what Rimuru is feeling right now. This is a surprise no one wants to come back home to.
Calling a meeting in the center of the city with all major leaders that weren't severely injured Rimuru asks what exactly happened. As they give they're sides of the story, it's slowly pieced together in Rimuru's mind. The battle pretty much went the same as the original in the main city of Rimuru although it seems the attack was a little smaller because they sent some soldiers to invade Migeru City as well. The aftermath left Hakurou and Gobta unconscious, Benimaru and Geld injured and Benimaru and Gobzi relatively unscathed with tolerable injuries, Gobzi especially because he was dealing with the smaller invasion. Well, there are two major casualties but during the discussion itself they definitely don't want to tell him directly. As the discussion continues Rimuru gets noticeably angrier as he grows more quiet.
Myulan doesn't try to stir the flames even more this time because I already told her I know who she is but that doesn't really change much. As they all leave I am left alone with Rimuru. "Rimuru, it's okay, we can get over this, this isn't..."
"Where's Shion?"
Shit, didn't expect him to ask me about this. "Uh."
"Where is she? They didn't talk about her and she wasn't at the meetup. Where is Shion?"
"Are you sure you want to see?" He quietly nods. "Alright then." I sigh as I motion him to follow me. I walk over to the bodies as people begin to group them up and using [Magic Sense], locate Shion's body. There are people here, including quite a few of the attendants of the meetup and as I silently motion to them to prepare they immediately realize what's about to happen and prepare for the worst.
"Alright then, here you go." I pull off a cover revealing Shion's corpse. "I wasn't here for it but she apparently died in battle."
Rimuru initially has no reaction but then suddenly a massive plume of Magicules bursts from him and radiates everywhere as I stand there and watch it happen not wanting to get in the way of his emotions.
"Lord Rimuru!" Rigurd yells as he tries to get it to stop to avoid further injury from possible Magicule Poisoning. After a few seconds of unbridled anger he stops and locks his glaring aura inside of him again.
I motion everyone to leave us alone to let Rimuru deal with this better. As they all walk away with Shuna telling both of us that if anything happens she's always here everyone leaves.
Rimuru's mask cracks as he looks down at Shion's body. He then slowly mutters angrily, "Migeru, I failed. I failed them all."
I may have been aiming for this but he's still my brother now. I can't just let him say this. As much as I act like a manipulator as I said to Yuuki, I have a lot of strong emotions and deep personal connections to the people I use to help me satisfy my desires, and that separates me from him. I don't want Rimuru to actually suffer too much so I slowly wake up to him and in an effort to comfort him I say, "No you didn't Rimuru.. You didn't fail them, you saved them."