I'm back from working outside the city for 4 days. Enjoy guys.
Ludwig could swear on his mother's name that there's electricity in the air. His skin was pricked by the tension while his shoulders felt like they were pressed down by a giant's hands.
It had been a while since he felt like this. Ilea's pressure was nothing but a child's play compared to what he was feeling right now. But it's not like he didn't understand why. The battle healer was still a human at the end of the day, even though her body didn't behave like one. But the dragon with a little girl's appearance in front of him wasn't. She was a Demon Lord. A stronger one at that.
Despite of the pressure, though, Ludwig didn't even feel his life was in danger. Knowing the canon was one of the reasons, but what made him more relaxed that he should be was due to how many sweet things he had prepared for Milim. He even bought some modern candies from the system shop.
Milim's face turned serious at that moment. "Are you mocking me?"
Just as she said so, another wave of power shot out from her body. Above, the cloud started to gather as if it were the mirror of her emotion.
"No way." Ludwig let out a crisp laugh. "How can I do that when I stand in front of a being that is much stronger than me?"
Milim held his gaze for a moment longer. But now, there's also a small smile on her face beside her pointed looks. Then her eyes moved past him to the line of fighters standing behind him and Rimuru with the same bright attention she had given everything else since landing.
"You guys are really strange." She said, returning to Ludwig. "Most people either run or try to fight when I arrive."
"Well, my friend said that's not the way of Tempest." He shrugged before pointing to Rimuru with his thumb. "We prefer hospitality rather than hostility."
Rimuru stepped forward from beside him. Up until this point, the slime had been uncharacteristically quiet, which Ludwig understood. He was thinking, calculating, and running through everything the Great Sage was feeding him about what stood in front of them.
"He's correct." He started. "I am confident that no place in this world can beat the selection of food we have."
Milim's eyes finally landed on Rimuru. A bright twinkle appeared there, like she finally remembered why she was here.
"Ah, there you are! The one I want to greet!"
In the next moment, the Demon Lord was already in front of Rimuru. She then slipped her hands to his armpits before raising him into the air.
"I am Demon Lord Milim Nava. I am here to say hi to you since you are the strongest in this city."
Ludwig chuckled again as he witnessed what happened to his friend. But at the same time, he also paid attention to the fighters of Tempest.
What happened after that was familiar to what he knew. Rimuru asking Milim about why she thought he was the strongest in the village before the dragon Demon Lord told him why. Then, she finally said what Ludwig was waiting for.
"So, did you eat the Orc Lord?" Milim moved his face closer to Rimuru and asked so.
With a wry smile appearing on his face, Rimuru answered. "Kind of…"
Knowing what would happen next in the canon, Ludwig decided to move closer to the two at the moment. As he stepped closer, two sets of eyes landed on him. But as someone who was used to it, he paid no attention at all.
At the same time, his hands went into his Storage Dimension, something that Milim saw with great interest.
"What is that?"
Rather than answering straight, Ludwig just continued what he did. Only after he finally fished out what he wanted to the real world did he answer. "Do you want to know about the hole, or do you want to know about these things?"
Milim's eyes went to the tray before the sentence was even finished, and her nose twitched several times.
The puddings sat in their ceramic cups, the caramel visible through the base of each one, dark enough at the edges where it had caught the heat. Beside them was the tiramisu, the cocoa powder dusted across the top in an even layer, the edges of the dish showing how the cream had settled after being left to rest. The cake sat next to that, nothing elaborate about it, but the crumb was visible where Akane had cut a small slice to show the interior.
Then there were the other things. The modern candies he had pulled from the system shop, wrapped in their bright packaging that had no equivalent anywhere in this world. Colors that did not exist in Tempest's palette, shapes that were too uniform to have been made by hand.
And the cola, two bottles, the glass cold enough that the air around them was already misting slightly.
Milim had gone completely still. Her eyes moved across the tray item by item with an expression that signified she had already let go of all her guard.
"What are these?" She said it without looking up.
"It's food. Tempest's specialty." Ludwig answered before his eyes went to Rimuru, who was also looking at the tray. On his face, he could see that he had finally realized something; probably the Great Sage told him about it.
Her eyes finally lifted to his face. "All of it?"
"All of it."
She looked back at the tray. Then she reached out and picked up one of the candies. She turned it over in her fingers, examining the color and the texture of the packaging with the focused attention she had previously given to Rimuru. Then she looked at him again with an expression that was no longer a Demon Lord's but just a child's.
"How do I open this?"
Ludwig took it from her fingers and tore the wrapper open along the seam. He then handed the pearl-like red candy back to Milim.
Looking at it for a few seconds with twinkling eyes, she put it in her mouth. The reaction was not immediate. There was a second where nothing happened. But then, her eyes went wide before her eyes beamed.
She looked down at the empty wrapper in her hand. Then back up at Ludwig.
"I want more."
The word she said was by no means a request. Yet, Ludwig still handed her another one without comment.
To be honest, he had thought about not giving her another one right away in hope of making her promise several things like in the canon. But soon after he finished thinking about it, he decided not to do that.
A promise was just a promise in the end, neither a deal nor an agreement. A Demon Lord with the personality of a child was the last he could trust about fulfilling a promise. So, he turned to another option. Making her addicted to the food he had.
That was an easier way to win her over.
Just as Milim dug through the candies, Rimuru stood beside him.
"You sure prepared a lot."
He said it in a tone that was somewhere between accusatory and relaxed. Like he wasn't sure what to do about the whole situation.
"Well, I have to prepare for the worst, no?" Ludwig shrugged before giving Milim the next prey for her bliss, the puddings.
Rimuru clicked his tongue at that moment. "You should have told me."
Ludwig didn't offer any words after Rimuru said so. He had thought about letting Rimuru knew in advance about Milim, but he didn't think it was wise to do so. People would only grow when they were out of their comfort zone. Even when Milim's appearance in Tempest wouldn't cause much trouble, the surprise should be enough to jolt anyone awake.
There's a difference between knowing that being cut was painful and experiencing the pain from being cut firsthand.
What just happened would surely make Rimuru and all the higher-ups of Tempest think about where they stood now. They were still weak compared to the top fighter of this world, and if they want their peace to last, there's no other choice but to grow stronger.
Before long, Milim let out a big burp after finishing the Colas. The tray was empty now; not even the crumbs from the cake could be seen there. Just like what he knew from the original story, the draconic Demon Lord quickly looked at him again.
"Do you have more?"
"No." Ludwig answered simply.
Milim's face fell like a child who had just been told Santa was not real. "What do you mean by no?"
"I mean I don't have those things anymore." Ludwig picked the tray up and sent it back into his Storage Dimension. "But my friend Rimuru here might have something similar to it. You can ask him."
Milim's crestfallen face quickly went bright as he heard his words. She then whipped her head toward Rimuru. "Really?"
"U-uh…" Rimuru scratched his cheek. "I don't have cake, but I have something sweet."
The next moment, he pulled out something that looked just like his slime form. But unlike the blue colour his slime form had, the small thing had a golden colour.
Ludwig knew immediately what his friend had just taken out. Honey. The very same honey that should put Milim on her knees after just one exchange of fists.
Milim looked at the small golden thing in Rimuru's hand with the same focused attention she had given the candy wrapper. Then she reached out and took it without asking, which Ludwig suspected was simply how Milim operated when something interested her enough.
Then, she bit into it.
The silence that followed was different from any other silence that had happened after she arrived. This one was the silence of everyone present watching a Demon Lord doing something none of them had ever heard a Demon Lord was capable of doing before.
Her eyes closed. When they opened again, it showed none of the power she had exuded before.
"What is this?"
"Honey." Rimuru answered. His voice had found its footing again, the uncertainty from earlier mostly gone. "From Tempest."
Milim looked down at what remained in her hand, then back at Rimuru. The conclusion she reached appeared to take very little time. "I like you."
Rimuru blinked. "Thank you?"
"I have decided." She pointed at him with the same directness she had used for everything else since arriving. "You are my best friend now."
At that statement, Ludwig couldn't help but laugh. Behind him, he could hear Benimaru making the particular sound of a man whose understanding of the world had just been reorganized against his will.