"Don't you dare do it."
"...I haven't even thought about doing anything."
Suzuki had been given a private, highly comfortable resting place in the center of the muddy, broken-down village. He had earned it; not only had he dared to invest heavily in this dilapidated settlement, pulling endless building materials from his [Absolute Storage], but he was also Rimuru's officially declared best friend.
To the hobgoblins, Rimuru was God. He was the divine savior who had fundamentally altered their destinies. Because of that, whatever Rimuru said was absolute gospel. If Rimuru said Suzuki was a VIP, then Suzuki was treated like royalty.
It certainly helped that Suzuki was incredibly handsome, and he hadn't arrived alone. Glued to his side was a breathtakingly beautiful Elf, Anrietta. Even though she wore a sleek, assassin-like mask that obscured the lower half of her face, the elegant curve of her jaw and her piercing eyes made her beauty undeniable. But no one dared to look at her with impure thoughts; Kaijin, Vesta, and the Dwarven craftsmen knew exactly who she was. She was the Head of the Night Assassins, a lethal A-Rank fighter, and King Gazel's personal shadow.
The fact that Anrietta was currently acting as Suzuki's personal "secretary" spoke volumes. To the four legendary Dwarven craftsmen, Gazel's judgment was absolute. For Suzuki to be granted the King's most trusted operative meant he was an incredibly important figure.
"I won't do anything weird," Suzuki repeated, leaning back in his chair. "I am literally just looking at the village."
"...If you say so."
Yet Anrietta's sharp, assessing eyes never left him. She sat beside him on the wooden bench, her thigh pressing dangerously close to his. Her soft, subtle warmth seeped through their clothes as she intensely scrutinized his side profile, trying to dig out his true intentions as he calmly watched the village undergo its massive transformation.
Once Rimuru had arrived with the four legendary Dwarven craftsmen, they didn't hold back. They immediately laid out a master plan to elevate the muddy encampment into a proper civilization.
While the foundations were barely dug, the blueprints clearly showed an end to the winding, filthy paths. The village would be structured on a perfect grid, featuring wide main streets, efficient drainage, a central plaza, and designated residential and industrial zones.
It made perfect sense. In his previous life, Rimuru—Satoru Mikami—had been a 37-year-old general contractor. He had spent decades managing construction sites and coordinating tradesmen. Watching a broken village evolve into a thriving city from scratch was likely his ultimate architectural fantasy.
Suzuki deeply respected the hustle, but he had zero desire to join in. Their core interests were completely different. Rimuru wanted to build a nation; Suzuki just wanted to live luxuriously with maximum profit and minimum physical labor.
So, when he watched Rimuru casually decide to bestow Names upon an entire tribe of four hundred goblins, Suzuki could only sigh heavily.
"...Are you not going to stop him?" Anrietta asked, her voice laced with disbelief as she watched the little blue slime mass-produce names.
"It should be fine. He's special, after all."
Yet, exactly as one would expect, the moment Rimuru named the four-hundredth goblin, his magicules bottomed out and he completely passed out.
"Rimuru-sama!"
The goblins panicked, quickly carrying their unconscious savior to a safe, comfortable tent. Suzuki simply watched the chaos unfold. He hadn't tried to stop the slime because he knew it was impossible. Rimuru was far too gentle and responsible to leave his followers weak and defenseless. That core goodness was exactly why Suzuki felt safe investing in him.
"...Is this really okay?" Anrietta asked, her brow furrowing in confusion. As a high-ranking operative, she knew perfectly well that Naming a monster was a lethally dangerous gamble. It permanently drained the Namer's magicules to trigger the target's evolution. In many cases, the one granting the name permanently weakened themselves.
"Don't worry about him," Suzuki said smoothly. "He can grow stronger by eating, and his internal magicule reserves are essentially a bottomless pit."
"..."
Anrietta definitely didn't trust his casual explanation. But her doubts didn't matter. With Rimuru unconscious, the anxious, newly-evolved Hobgoblins all turned their eyes to Suzuki, the human who spoke with such absolute, unbothered authority.
Suzuki stood up, his gaze sweeping over the crowd of monsters.
"Protect him with everything you have," Suzuki commanded, his voice cold and pragmatic. "He is your entire future. Without him, none of you have any value."
His words were incredibly cruel, but they were the absolute, undeniable truth. Without Rimuru, these goblins would have been swallowed by the law of the jungle. They were weak, small, and ugly. If Rimuru hadn't risked his life to Name them and force their evolutions, they would have remained at the absolute bottom of the food chain forever.
"YES, SIR!" the Hobgoblins roared in unison. Even if Suzuki hadn't ordered them, they would have happily laid down their lives to protect their sleeping God.
Since Rimuru needed a day or a few days to enter "Sleep Mode" and recover, Suzuki decided to use the downtime to finalize his corporate blueprints. He retreated to the private quarters the village had prepared for him—a large, sturdy tent that resembled a modern glamping yurt.
"Suzuki-sama? Would you like to rest now?"
A soft, impossibly sweet voice broke his concentration. Suzuki looked up, and his brain momentarily short-circuited.
He was still struggling to comprehend how the Naming process worked. How could small, wrinkled, hunched-over goblins suddenly transform into tall, athletic beings with smooth, healthy olive skin? Some of them looked almost entirely human!
Especially the females.
Standing before him was Haruna. She possessed large, liquid doll-like eyes and incredibly soft, refined features. Her simple, rustic clothing clung desperately to her newfound curves, straining tantalizingly against her ample, bouncing chest and wrapping snugly around her plush, thick thighs.
As she leaned forward slightly to address him, treating him to a dizzying view and the faint, sweet scent of forest flowers, Suzuki found himself trapped in a heavy daze.
...Okay, maybe investing in this village was the best decision I've ever made.
Suzuki forcibly suppressed his inner degeneracy, clearing his throat. "Yeah. Thank you, Haruna."
"It's my pleasure," Haruna beamed, her cheeks flushing slightly under his gaze. "Please, make yourself comfortable. When night falls, I will bring you dinner. Thanks to Rimuru-sama, we have an abundance of delicious food now!"
"I truly can't wait for that."
Among all the "cheats" Rimuru had brought to this world, his culinary knowledge was undeniably his greatest soft skill. Combining modern Japanese recipes with the ultra-high-quality, magical ingredients of the Jura Forest was going to turn this muddy village into the absolute culinary capital of the world.
Haruna bowed gracefully and slipped out of the tent, leaving Suzuki and Anrietta alone.
Suzuki looked around. He had initially assumed staying in a goblin tent would be filthy and uncomfortable, but it was surprisingly clean and cozy. He could use his [Manager] skill to temporarily overwrite the tent into a luxurious modern Penthouse, but doing so would be incredibly rude to the Hobgoblins who had worked so hard to prepare it for him. He would accept their hospitality.
"What are you actually doing here?" Anrietta asked, crossing her arms impatiently. Her ample chest pressed upward against her dark leather armor. "Do you truly see a profitable future in this dirt patch?"
"It's a surprisingly good place to relax," Suzuki replied casually, sitting on the fur-lined bed. "I've been working non-stop. You have to give an investment time to grow. Even farmers need a few months before they can harvest their crops, right?"
"..."
"Or, in your nation's case, even a master blacksmith needs time to forge a masterpiece."
"...Then what exactly are you planning to do while we wait?"
With a heavy, exasperated sigh, Anrietta reached behind her head and unclasped her assassin's mask. The dark material slipped away, revealing a breathtakingly beautiful, mature Elven face. Her cheeks were flushed with a faint, rosy heat from the humid forest air, and her plush, glossy lips parted as she took a deep, comfortable breath.
Suzuki stared at her, thoroughly captivated.
He had to admit, he possessed a certain... appreciation for the mysterious, teasing allure of a facemask—a lingering, specific fetish born from the pandemic days of his past life—but seeing her bare, flawless face in the dim light of the tent was an absolute treat.
"What?" she asked, noticing his lingering stare. She shifted slightly, her leather armor creaking, drawing his eyes briefly down to her neckline before snapping back up.
Suzuki smiled, leaning back against the pillows.
"Since we have some free time," Suzuki murmured, patting the empty space on the bed beside him. "Why don't you come a little closer and teach me everything you know about the geography of this world?"