I didn’t take long to return to the village after my talk with Speculator.
Honestly, discovering that it is possible for me to evolve and continue growing made me very happy; after all, the discomfort in my body was increasing, and I was running out of ways to increase my power at a pace that wouldn’t leave me behind compared to the monsters of the future.
By the time I passed thru the village gates, Rimuru still hadn’t returned.
The hobgoblins seemed quite happy to see me return and quickly praised me as if I were their king.
“Calm down, guys, there’s no need for so much flattery; after all, Rimuru is the leader,” I said loudly with a tone that reflected my discomfort.
—Don’t be so humble, Kaelion-sama.
You were also responsible for the survival of our village and helped us a lot.
We are deeply grateful —Rigurd replied to me quickly.
Given this behavior, I couldn’t help but smile.
“—Alright then, as you wish —I said.”
After the energetic reception, I retreated to one of the small provisional houses and that’s how the whole day went.
The next day, Rimuru finally returned accompanied by the goblin riders and the four dwarves.
By the time they entered the village, I was already waiting for them.
—Hey!
“How was the trip?” I asked Rimuru.
For the moment, I would ignore the confused looks from the dwarves and focus on talking to him.
“—Good!” —Rimuru replied to me—.
So many things have happened to us that you wouldn’t believe it.
We even went to a trial with the king of Dwargon.
But well, these behind me are Kaijin, a master blacksmith and very skilled craftsman; Garm, a master armorer expert in creating shields and armor; Dord, a specialist in goldsmithing, accessories, and magical jewelry; and Myrd, an architect and engineer —Rimuru introduced them to me.
—A pleasure, I hope we can work together to improve the village —I said as I approached Kaijin and the others to shake their hands.
“Likewise,” Kaijin replied to me.
Although Rimuru has told us about you, I must say that I have never seen a race like yours, would you mind telling me what it’s called?
—the dwarf asked me with interest.
“I don’t know,” I said directly.
I don’t know if you know this, but I am an otherworlder.
When I arrived in this world, this was my race, and so far, I haven’t discovered anything about it —I told the group of dwarves a half-truth.
—Mmmh.
I suppose it must be some mutation or variation of a race —Garm replied to me.
“That’s what I thought,” I said to them.
Well, for the moment we will show you the current situation of the village so that we can get to work immediately.
When you have checked what needs to be done, we can discuss more calmly how to tackle this situation.
After taking a tour of the village accompanied by the dwarves and Rimuru, who took the opportunity to provide some extra information about the situation along with me, we gathered to decide what we needed to do next.
It was Kaijin who started to speak.
—Rimuru-sama, to be honest, there is a lot of work to do, and teaching the villagers to build correctly will take some time.
For now, we will take care of designing some houses and necessary buildings; the rest should focus on gathering materials.
Rimuru and I nodded, and Rigurd, who was with us, quickly went out to give orders to the others after receiving the list of materials.
Before the dwarves started working on the plans, I interrupted to give my idea.
—Uh…
I can’t say for sure, but if possible, I would like you to design the buildings with the thought that in the future it will surely be necessary to increase their size and expand them.
For some reason, I have a feeling that this village is destined to grow significantly, so keeping that in mind from the beginning might be useful.
—Yes.
That could be a good idea —said Rimuru.
—We will take it into account.
When the plans are finished, we will let you know so that we can start building as soon as possible.
After that, we parted ways with the dwarves, and Rimuru and I were left alone.
“So, have you been able to do what you needed to do?” Rimuru asked me.
“Sure,” I replied.
Actually, it wasn’t anything complicated; I just wanted to go see the nearest kingdom, which by the way is called Blumund.
Although since I didn’t want to get too close, I couldn’t find out anything else —I lied to my friend.
“Alright, in the future we will focus on other kingdoms.” For the moment, let’s try to improve this village as much as possible —Rimuru told me.
Later that same day, the future leaders of the other goblin villages arrived and convinced Rimuru to accept them into the village.
The order of arrival of Rimuru and the goblins shouldn’t have been like that, but I guess it doesn’t matter too much.
Just like Rimuru did in the original story, we asked the younger brother of the dwarves if it was possible to incorporate things like a water system for the houses and details of the style to make daily life more efficient into the designs. Follow the newest chapters on g.com.
This time, it wasn’t just Rimuru’s vague suggestions; I also contributed my knowledge on the subject, so I suppose the result should be somewhat better.
After that, I spent the four days that Rimuru spent naming the around five hundred goblins who had come with him to extract the information he needed.
As a small extra, I randomly selected about thirty individuals, to whom I paid special attention and a significant amount of magicules in the analysis.
I took a little blood from them, which I then extracted again right after they received their name and after completing the evolution.
I didn’t do it with more because the space in my inventory was quite limited for everything I wanted and needed to do.
Information also takes up space, you know.
Beside, convincing them to have their blood drawn was not pleasant for either me or them.
According to Especulador, this was a good idea because he was able to compare evolution patterns that repeated in all individuals, the differences of each one, and what factors activated and generated the evolution.
Although he told me that, due to his current calculation and analysis capacity, deciphering all the information was impossible and that a significant part was lost.
I suppose I will try to fill in the gaps in information simply with the enormous amount of evolutions I will witness.
Anyway, having to stand there watching five hundred beings simply receive names that were obviously made up on the spot was infuriating.
Beside, the continuous drain on my energy never allowed me to feel “complete,” so i was in a bad mood; moreover, I barely had time to train.
Even with all the “studying” I had to do, I managed to find some time and energy to learn some skills of this world with the help of Speculator.
As he explained to me, it wasn’t that I couldn’t learn them, it’s just that the traditional process of receiving them by being recognized by the Voice of the World didn’t work for me, so I had to learn them or acquire them thru brute force.
Of course, doing this alone and without any idea was impossible, but thanks to Speculator, I managed to learn the extra skill “Ranged Barrier.” Knowing that Rimuru would manage to turn it into “Multilayer Barrier” in the cave of Veldora while doing his training, after having devoured Shizue, it allowed me to learn the extra skill “Multilayer Barrier” as well, even though I really didn’t have any resistances to apply to these barriers, but well, better than nothing.
More than the skills themselves, I was happy to be able to learn skills from this world; after all, the more possibilities and paths I had, the easier it would be for me.
I also discovered the answer to a question that had arisen for me during these last few days.
For some reason, as a sub-skill of my unique skill;”Anomaly,” there is Charybdis’s skill “Mana Jamming.” According to Speculator, this is a consequence of the concept of being an anomaly.
In his words: “by being different from what surrounds you, you naturally alter the things around you.” It sounds super useful, but in reality, it’s a very, very weakened version that only works within a tiny radius around my body.
This peculiarity is also what made it easier for me to manipulate my mana and even, very limitedly, the space within this range.
But well, right now I don’t plan to keep training anything else until the group of adventurers arrives along with Shizu.
Simply because the almost passive consumption of magicules I have is already a big enough problem, and I wouldn’t want to have to fight against the fire spirit, Ifrit, even in a more weakened state.
Beside, I have a small plan to try to obtain the unique skill “Degenerate,” although the possibility of this happening is really low according to what Speculator told me.
Anyway.
Having nothing else to do, I simply headed toward one of the tents and spent the time thinking about the future.
In this way, the rest of the day passed.