After the speech, I received word from Soei. Sir Rimuru, do you have a moment? he asked via Thought Communication.
I had asked him to help us get an alliance going, but what happened? Did he, like, not know where they were, or something? After his flashy exit, if that was all he had for me, I might have to drop the “gentle” act a little…
It worried me a bit, but I should’ve known that wasn’t the reality. Unlike me, Soei was actually somewhat capable.
I was able to meet with the lizardman chief. He seemed willing to accept the alliance, but he asked for you to personally come see him, my lord…
Hmm. That was surprising. It wasn’t even half a day since our conference ended, and he had already extracted a promise from the guy. Talk about capable! And handsome, to boot. I almost resented him.
As I tried to get that under control, I replied, Sounds good. We’re gonna fight this out in the marshes anyway. Like, you’re already there?
Oh, um, yes, my lord. Shadow Motion made the voyage to the marshes rather smooth sailing. It allows me to immediately travel to any individual I personally know, but tracking down the chief’s exact location took me some time…
As he put it, Soei used Shadow Motion to reach the marshes, then deployed his army of Replicants to scope out the area. Gobta could only travel via Shadow Motion for as long as he could hold his breath, so Soei outpaced him. It appeared that his physical corpus was already back.
I wondered if having a Replicant contact the lizardman chief was really the best thing. The mere fact he could control multiples at once still astonished me. It was nothing I could pull off. Well done.
So when would you like to hold the discussions, sir? he asked, shrugging off my compliments in a way Shuna or Shion never would.
Hmm… We’ll probably need time to prepare, and the goblin riders will need a few days for the journey. A week from now, maybe?
It’d be more like two weeks if we were going on foot, but a goblin rider wouldn’t need five days. I reckoned we’d take around two days to prepare, so a week should be fine.
Gabil had his own transport beast, but it didn’t look nearly as fast as a tempest wolf. If we arrived at the lizardman caverns before he and his men returned, we might wind up getting caught in…whatever he was planning. I wasn’t completely sure it was a coup yet, but it always paid to watch your back at times like these. We needed to stay on top of the situation if we wanted to keep the initiative on our side.
A little late, in this case, would be just right. So seven days.
Very well. I will work to make it happen.
He ended the link.
✦ ✦ ✦
I wanted this alliance to be firm, in writing, as soon as possible, but I knew it’d be hard to trust someone you’d never met before. But if we waited to prepare until after we shook hands and declared the alliance done, the orcs would be knocking on our collective doors in an instant.
If the whole thing fell through, I was planning to pull back our forces at once. If they weren’t willing to work with us, we’d wait for the orcs to swarm them, then hustle off to the treants’ sanctuary. It sucked for them, but I wasn’t here to give them lip service. This was war, and I had people counting on me. There had to be a line in the sand.
They sounded open to the idea, though, so maybe I was just catastrophizing again…
Either way, though, I had to hope it’d work out.
✦ ✦ ✦
Kaijin already had my next order—a hundred sets of goblin rider weapons and armor, as soon as possible. Benimaru and Hakuro needed some, too, not to mention Shion, but they could wait. Soei would be home soon anyway; they could get it arranged then, together. Kurobe was taking care of our weapons, Shuna and Garm our armor, and they’d be done with it soon enough.
So while I waited for Soei, I decided to organize our goblin riders. Their leader, to start with. I inadvertently locked eyes with Gobta. He was second-in-command with the security forces. It seemed suitable enough.
“Hey, Gobta, are you free?”
“Nhh?! Whenever you say that, I have a feeling it never works out too well for me…”
“Ah, you’re just imagining things. You’re going, too, right?”
Gobta stopped short of replying. I smiled at him. He froze. “Of course!” he shouted nervously.
I didn’t appreciate the weirdness of that act, but I chalked it up to the ominous aura I could feel behind me. Well, huh. Guess a smile from Shion was more effective than anything I could cook up in slime form. She nodded at Gobta’s reply, looking down at me as I mulled over the power she wielded.
So Gobta was our goblin rider leader. No one had any complaints—despite his occasional wobbles, they recognized how capable a hobgob he was. Rigur was just as enthusiastic about the decision, so I didn’t foresee any problems.
“By the way, have you asked Kurobe about the weapon you promised me yet?”
Boy, I sure didn’t, huh?
“Oh yeah, of course.”
“Really? ’Cause you look kind of like you forgot.”
Damn, he’s sharp.
“Ha-ha-ha! You’re such a worrywart, Gobta, my boy! I’ve got the most wonderful shortsword coming your way, so be patient!”
“R-really?! Ooh, I will be!”
Nice. Dodged that bullet. Good thing Gobta is so easy to work with. Better tell Kurobe before I forget again, I thought as he merrily skipped away.
✦ ✦ ✦
That left a hundred members to select. It was a pretty simple process—I just selected the original goblins who were already paired with their rides as opposed to the relief members in the security force. I handed their names over to Kaijin, asking him to get their equipment ready.
Just as I was done wrapping this up, Soei came back. “I apologize for the delay,” he said as he appeared from Benimaru’s shadow like some master ninja. You could just fall in love with him, the way he moved.
So let’s get started, then.