The Red Priest and Blue Slime Chapter 39

You know... The death of ten thousand and far more to create a Demon Lord was definitely weighing on me actually. The harvest festival... Where the burning of an army of accumulated souls would allow a monster to propel itself to the height of its possible power.

Sure, I didn't and wouldn't be going through that as I had my weird eldritch cultivation method in being a Red Priest. But Rimuru? I didn't want to have all of canon's BS late-game nonsense falling onto my shoulders.

I could stand up on my own for sure. But did I want to deal with Primordial Demons who were so damned troublesome? No no, I would happily allow Rimuru to have them...

Ok, the thought of having my own big titty goth Diablo as a maid sounded wonderful. As I knew the demons would take a bit after their contractor's wishes to say nothing of the bodies we could make and put them into.

In either case... The meeting the next morning with King Gazel and his advisors went fine, with more of the final drafts of our trade deals for specialized processed resources from his kingdom

Being sent to the Jura Alliance in return for more raw materials, monster materials, and most especially my skill-granting elixers which were sold at a happy premium.

"Hmm, well with Gazel gone... And our dwarves are happy now that any drama has also been cleaned up. Let's go get some materials, Jake! You need that stomach lining from a fire drake, remember!" Rimuru said excitedly.

I raised an eyebrow and I said in some amusement. "Rimuru, how much of your wanting to get more materials is just you wanting to get more skills huh?" 

Rimuru's human form collapsed into her slime ball form and she said quickly. "Geh!? What are you talking about Jake? We need to do our part to secure the borders of the Jura Alliance and I need to be as strong as possible to do that hahaha!"

And I saw Benimaru, who was sitting across from us in the meeting we the higher ups of the Jura Alliance, were having after the meeting with Gazel. Anyway, the red-haired Kijin face-palmed at Rimuru's shameless words.

"Could we just bring the corpses of the monsters we fight for you to eat Rimuru?" Shuna asked curiously as she was sitting beside me and she threw Shion, who was standing behind me a look.

Rimuru pouted at the question, knowing all to well not to lie, so she muttered. "Yes..." Then she formed an exclamation point atop her slime body as she added quickly.

"But with Gazel leaving, right now would be the perfect time for us both to leave the city for a bit! Besides Jake needs help to deal with that drake!"

And with no shame I said with a cruel smile. "You know what... I will need help with dealing with that drake. But no, Rimuru as the vice leader of the Jura Alliance, one of us obviously needs to be within the city." 

Rimurur's slime eye's filled with massive tear's of slime that ran down her slime body with her whining. "Come on Jake!!! You can't just leave me here to do paperwork!"

And with zero hesitation, I smiled. "Oh? It's not so bad. After all I've been doing it for the last few weeks without any major hickups or Jura City coming to a grinding halt due to a massive error in said paperwork. You will be fine, I am sure."

I stood up and Rimuru just sagged in her seat with Benimaru saying comfortingly. "It's alright, Rimuru. You will do just fine I am sure... In any case, I am going to go check in with Hakuro for training."

And thus, Rimuru. The overpowered slime was left alone, betrayed by her allies to be devoured in turn by the endless paperwork that was the result of tens of thousands of people asking for housing, help fixing plumbing, and so many other things.

I left the meeting room with a slight hum of thought as Shion followed behind me as we left via the main road to head past the low stone walls that blocked off any random wild life of the Jura Forest from entering our city.

And then I headed over to a particularly large tree and I firmly knocked on the trunk before I spoke. "Can you get Treyni over here?" I asked the dryad inhabiting the tree.

A soft giggle on the wind was my answer making me roll my eye's in knowing the dryad was asking for a bribe. So I just poured a bit of regeneration potion onto the roots of the tree to fill it and the ground with life.

"Hmph... We may need to see if the dwarves need some special kindling if the dryads are going to ask for bribes." Shion muttered with a pout.

I just chuckled and said easily. "It's fine. They are providing services that no one else certainly can."

That and the Dyrads were essential at this point in keeping the completely outlandish farms we had created in order... It turns out when you water herbs, fruits, and vegetables, and grains with regeneration and other skill elixers...

The plants would mutate into highly dangerous monster plants that although very valuable for alchemical reagents and very good for food. Required constant attention from the Dyads lest they grow giant mouths and eat some poor goblin walking past.

Shion didn't get a chance to speak as from the tree's roots came a small sprout that formed into Treyni as she 'root teleported' or whatever she did. "Jake, you asked for me?" Treyni asked with her typical soft voice.

I nodded and asked if she knew through her connection with the Jura Forest, where a fire drake was. An actual monster which wasn't sentient or anything, so I didn't have any shame in hunting it down.

After a moment of thought, Treyni said thoughtfully. "Hmm, with Veldora previously being sealed here in the Jura Forest, we used to have a number of dragonoid monsters running around in the deeper caves and smaller mountains. Let me check a couple spots real quick, I will be back in like twenty minutes." 

-

A few minutes later, Treyni returned with some helpful information on a small group of angry fire drakes living inside of an old cave that connected to the cave system in which Veldora used to be sealed in. 

Which made sense, as the magicules that were constantly put out by Veldora did spawn a bunch of monsters in those tunnels as Rimuru would often point out.

And with my target being in the old tunnels, we actually had maps for alot of the tunnels as we had a sizable population of dwarves, and lizardmen who were living in those mana rich caves and harvesting the special resources down there.

Shion and my footsteps across the rocky ground were the only sounds being made as the lesser monster's had fled from the mana we were emitting just passively. Until we entered a deeper cavern where a dozen fire drakes laid around large glowing mana crystals that emitted great heat.

"Hmm, don't destroy those fire attribute mana crystals. I can use them for some fire resistance, skill elixers." I spoke as I approached the wingless drakes that looked over toward the source of my words.

Their eye's were filled with simple animalistic 'intelligance' but... They had no soul in their eyes. They were simply a manifestation of too much Magicules in one area and the world itself recylcing the excess magic in creating a monster.

My hand filled with the Flames of the Yatagarsu and I made it form a large tower sheild and a long lance of solid flames as the largest fire drake roared at me furiously.

"Come on then." I said calmly before I smashed the lance and shield of flames together making a loud thudding noise as the solid flames fried the air that was compressed between them.

The alpha, seeing the taunt for what it was, charged! It's clawed feet tore through the stone floor as it roared with flames building up in the back of it's throat.

Then it's roar became a choked death gurgle as my fiery lance shot forward and burst out the back of it's head and neck with the black flames of my lance expanding endlessly before it smashed into the roof of the cave with a hiss of the stone shattering and melting around the flames.

"Don't kill them all my lord! I gotta do some work you know!" Shion yelled out as she charged in with her sword and I just shrugged and let the blood knight Kijin slaughter her way through the rest of the fire drakes with her extreme strength. 

Once Shion cut the poor fire drakes into multiple chunks, I put on some gloves and got to work. Cutting into the large monster's bodies to remove their stomachs, hearts, spines, and their teeth/claws.

As monsters were made out of pure magicules, even if the type of monster determined a sort of elemental allegiance that monster was aligned towards. So materials taken from monsters were the mainstays in alchemy, artificing and other things.

"Good work Shion. With Treyni's help this was taken care of alot faster then I thought it would be done." I spoke with a small grin before I thought. 'I might as well collect the rest of the ingredients for my next elixer. I need to become more powerful before Clayman pulled his BS and throws an overpowered monster at us.

On that same topic... Should I remain static in here in the Jura Forest? Honestly, the event's of Tensura Slime take years. The invasion from that other kingdom in which Shion dies and Rimuru does her harvest festival is literally a year or two away from now at the very least.

Likewise Rudra Nam... Whatever the fuck his name was, likewise woudn't be as much of an issue for years to come until Rimuru had long become famous in being a powerful demon lord.

Yuuki Kagurazaka, although a bit annoying at the start, wasn't going to be too much of an issue. As his whole life goal was to build this somewhat shitty and overly violent world into a free and more equal world.

Though using my fore-knowledge... Maybe I should save Clayman's life? As he wasn't this much of an asshole in the manga which the anime takes after. Because in the manga, he himself was mind-controlled by Tatsuya Kondou who was one of the strongest people in the Eastern Empire.

'No... My biggest enemy in reality is the Eastern Empire and the other human organizations with how they will invade the Jura Forest more then anything.

"Alright now that I have the fire drakes stomach, I need forty magicule rich spider eyes, forty drops of storm wolf blood, and forty ounces of powdered calcified amber from a dryad's tree that has out lived it's dryad for a millennium," I muttered as I went over the formula for the Sequence 5 elixer I would need to reach the Reaper stage of the Red Priest Pathway.

Shion, hearing my muttering, gave a slight shudder and said quietly,y making my face twitch. "Spider eyes? Eww I would never use that as an ingredient for food." 

I looked to Shion with a dark, deadpan before I snapped. "You literally fed me an alligator's eye with the gator meat pie. You made yesterday remember!?" 

"That's different! They weren't spider eyes! And the eyes making a yummy crunch that leaves a saucy taste when you bite into them, remember!" Shion cried out trying to defend herself, but I just raised an eyebrow as she sank into her self.

As despite her... Comically horrible cooking, she was so proud of. She couldn't even eat it at all either. So how the hell would she even know what it tasted like?

"Right... Anyway, I remember Rimuru talking about the spiders she found here in these caves so let's keep looking for those. The rest I can get fairly easily through Treyni, or Sif and Karna back home." 

The storm wolves I had named were also doing well, though together they were stronger than Ragna was. But Ragna was constantly training to be one of Rimuru's second in command and having a bit of a rivalry with Benimaru in this timeline for some reason.

Although Karna was training and sparring with Hakuro at times, he wasn't nearly as driven as Rimuru's Ragna was. But to be fair, I wasn't pressuring my subordinates to train as hard as they could.

We kept moving deeper into the tunnels, using my conjured flames of the Yatagarsu for light and I idly mused that I needed to make a skill elixer that would allow me to see in the dark and have enhanced senses.

As Rimuru could 'see' through a dozen different method's from sensing vibrations, sonar, to magical sonar, thermal, normal sight, and other forms as well.

And soon enough, after another half an hour of walking we found signs of the giant underground spiders. With the spiders being colony-based spiders that had toxic razor razor-sharp webbing that cut instead of being sticky.

But thankfully, the webbing was still very much flammable so I just burned the webs and used the Yatagarsu flames to burn away the toxic gases as well as we headed into the tunnel that was a massive spider den filled with spiders whose main body were the size of a large horse.

After killing those spider's through excessive violence, in which I was thankful that Shion wasn't actually scared of the giant hairy spider's I spent some time retrieving ALL of the eyes, fangs, poison sac's and their web spinner's from their backsides.

'I wonder if we could pick up a necromancer or something to animate the spider's web spinner's to make us a supply of webbing?' I mused before I was reminded that Rimuru had the web spinning skill already and could make web lines stronger then titanium itself.

So I just shook my head. "Alright, we got what I needed from the wilds. Is there any reagents or stuff you want to collect while we are out?" I asked Shion curiously.

Shion hummed in thought before she pouted for a second making me blink, before she seemingly had a thought and said happily. "Yup! We should go to the large hill overlooking the town!"

I wondered for a moment what she wanted, before shrugging as the spot was where Rimuru and I liked to chill out on our downtime at times. Though sometimes Rimuru like to just hang out there and brood while lying out in a slime blanket over Ragna.

"Ok let's go then. I am not in a rush to make my elixer, as its going to take a week to brew anyway." I said, shrugging casually.

And then as we were turning around to leave the tunnel's Shion spoke quietly. "Jake... Think I can cut through all the rock and soil above us to get to the surface?" 

I held in the urge to smack Shion across the head and I just said quietly. "No Shion, not even me or Rimuru could get through like fifty meters of Magicule-rich stone. Sure, our attacks would break the stone, but we wouldn't utterly destroy it."

Shaking my head, I finished with some amusement. "I much rather not die in such a pathetic way as being crushed in a cave-in." 

I already died in one humiliating way... And that was more than enough thank you very much.

We headed out of the tunnels without much else happening besides some large lizard monster thinking we were a snack and that we dealt with. 

-

"Coming up here every week is always worth it. As each time I come, Tempest has changed to a noticeable degree." Shion spoke softly as she sat beside me on the ledge of the small cliff as we looked over at the center of the Jura Alliance.

I hummed in agreement, as I watched I saw Demeter, the first goblin I named. Was helping several dryads in the distance pluck the produce from the very violent plants that made up our farms.

"It's certainly something... Plenty of work though in keeping tens of thousands of people fed and cared for." I spoke softly.

I felt Shion lean against me before she spoke quietly. "You and Rimuru are giving us a much better life, you know. We live in large, comfortable human houses, with our own rooms. Not just in huts made out of sticks and mud anymore."

Even the ogre's like Shion and Shuna's tribe didn't live in anything more complex than more elaborate mud huts, although made with a decent size. They were still ready to migrate if needed and didn't have real towns obviously.

Here in Tempest however? Even the common goblins that Rimuru and I hadn't gotten around to naming had small, tiny apartments and access to plumbing and clean water.

And seeing a group of hobgoblin children, kids who were born of true hobgoblins, we had named and a small army of wolves following behind them. I sighed in contentment as I realized something.

I shouldn't run off to the other empires to wage war for a slight or issue that won't happen for months, if not years. I needed to be here to protect my people, make them stronger, make myself stronger, and give them a better life.

As I myself was the leader of the Jura Alliance, Rimuru might be stronger then me. But everyone, even Benimaru, whom Rimuru named, looked to me for leadership. As Rimuru was unreliable when it came to logistics and actual leadership.

"So what is running through your head now my lord?" Shion asked quietly, and she gave a bit of a squeak of surprise as I wrapped an arm around her waist before I spoke.

"I was thinking of the future. What I shall be doing, and what is to come as a consequence." Another reason I wasn't really interested in going on some violent crusade across the world for the actions of the future, was simply that to become stronger at my core.

I needed to continue to use my alchemy to make elixer's. Elixer's I needed ingredients for, which I would far more easily find the resource-rich Jura Forest. To say nothing of a laboratory that was both very expensive and time-consuming to set up.

Obviously, something I couldn't just bring me with me wherever I wanted to go.

Hence myself staying in the Jura Forest with all the resources, my equipment, and being reactive was the way to go. Because I had all the resources I needed in the forest, basically to make myself a literal god.

I just needed to be patient and hold my ground until I became that god basically.

'Helll... Even the endgame materials in literal divine materials can be sourced from Veldora, and the bullshit super dungeon that Rimuru will want to build.' I mused as there really wasn't any real reason for me to want to leave Tempest other then to get away from the paperwork.

There was the logical reasons for not caring to leave... And as Shion gave a hum I also realized the not so logical and emotional reasons for me to not leave as the big titty Kijin stretched a bit before she spoke.

"Come on Jake, I need a shower after all the walking and I want to get the smell of blood off myself." She said with an easy smile.