That Time a Bookworm Got Ascended in Tensura

Ch.3 Unimaginable Power

Rimuru's pov: 

I was finally going to be going back to Tempest. Tomorrow. I had one more night with the kids and I would try to make it memorable for them before I had to leave for some time. Though I'd make sure to come back for them. I was currently in a restaurant with them all, I had brought them somewhere nice. Though suddenly I got a thought communication. 

'Rimuru-sama, a human child with a large aura has entered tempest, the aura is very dense but stays mostly within her own body. I believe she is in the later stages of what they call the devouring.' It was Soei, with what I would need to put as a very surprising report. Another kid like these? Was she a summon? I would need to find out. Luckily though I was going back to Tempest tomorrow. 

'Is her condition stable? Tell all executives to restrain their auras as much as possible when near her. As well as any monsters surpassing A- rank.' I couldn't risk having a girl from another country die simply from being inside mine. It would be a disaster. Though I also felt a tinge of sympathy for her. I'd try to get in contact with her as soon as I could. 

'Condition is stable, though it appears to have taken a dive a few days ago. It appears to happen when she sleeps, likely accidental uses of magicules within her own body.' Soei is so reliable, being able to accurately make a medical assessment in a world with magic. He really is a hunk, huh? 

'Maintain a distance, observe but don't make contact until I am back. I will talk to the party personally when I am back. I don't want to frighten them either, so simply carry my order, don't give the executives any further information for the time being. I do not want them to attempt to interfere on their own.' I had a feeling Shuna would attempt to treat this medically, she is very protective of young children, though I believed this was above her pay grade. As for Shion, I didn't want her attention being focuses on the party, especially if they were there for diplomatic reasons. I had more trust for Benimaru on this, though tight information would likely be best. 

'Understood. I will relay the information shortly.' With that our conversations ended. 

I hoped she would be alright for one day, though my students had noticed my expression turning serious and already had questions. 

First was Chloe, "What is wrong, Sensei?" I didn't know what to tell them at first, then I just decided to be honest. I expected them to understand how serious this was, as up until recently, that situation was their lives too. 

"Another child who has a similar condition to all of you. A little girl, I think she is younger than all of you." I put this simply and concisely. They all got serious expressions as well, clearly taking a kinship immediately. 

Kenya piped up next, "Sensei can save her, right? You saved all of us.." he trailed off after finishing his line. He could tell from how serious I was this wasn't as lenient as them. She was already nearing death, he seemed to have an odd understanding of this. 

I understood how they felt, so I stayed silent to compose myself. After this, I finally gave my confident smile. "I am sure I can, I promise you all I will." I made it a promise, since I knew how serious this was for them. I just hoped I could keep it. 

They all smiled to this and our night continued. 

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Myne's pov: 

Ok, why? I was born in Ehrenfest. I love my family, but now I wish they lived here when I was born. This city is incredible. The roads are just as good inside the city as out of it, and the buildings here have large windows, segmented and insulated with double pane. The buildings themselves are all painted and well organized. Every storefront had stalls and I could smell food on the air, I almost wanted to hop out of the cart right now to run over to one of the stalls. 

Now that we were in the town the number of patrols had increased, and there were hobgoblins guarding the entrance to the city, with a large gate.  I could almost feel the pressure from their presences, and looking at them I could tell they were strong. While Ferdinand didn't seem unsettled by their strength, everyone else was. Mjöllmile on the other hand had a friendly conversation with one of the guards and we were let inside immediately afterward. 

There were many kinds of monsters wandering the streets, talking and buying things. Orcs, though not normal orcs, Ferdinand said they were high orcs. All of them were named. Hobgoblins, though these ones were weaker and just civilians. Still, they were named. There were also some kobolds, beastkin, and other demihuman races. 

Ferdinand almost coughed his guts out when he saw them, dragon-newts. They were all clearly stronger than him, and named. They were just peacefully pulling a cart of high potions, they weren't even armed and were just in simple light armor pieces. This left me unsettled myself, this many named monsters meant there must be an unimaginably powerful monster here. This wasn't the end yet though. 

As our cart got to the plaza, as we were buying a pretty high end hotel while we were here. Ferdinand just straight up fainted when he saw them. Fran was shivering and in a panic. I didn't exactly understand it. It was a group of three human looking monsters, two in Japanese clothing and one in a pantsuit. They were all talking to each other, though none of us could hear it from here. Two had 2 horns on their foreheads while one had just a single horn. I couldn't feel any pressure from them at all, so I didn't get threatened by them. 

"T-those.. a-are, kijin.."  Fran finally spoke up. I had never seen a depiction of them, but now I understood the fear. Kijin are a kind of monster that evolves from ogres, and are so very powerful. All those kijin were named, and clearly had some high positions in the government here. This made the dragonnewts from earlier look tame. A monster that could name multiple kijin was simply beyond powerful, at the very least calamity rank. Though from the amount of other named monsters here, perhaps disaster rank. 

'Is that slime really that strong?' I found myself getting lost in thought. The idea of a slime being that powerful is simply astounding, perhaps even on par with the weaker demon lords. This had certainly left me shaking. While Benno, Lutz, Tuuli, and my mother didn't really understand this, our uneasiness carried over. 

Soon we saw another kijin approaching our cart, which was stopped in front of the plaza. She had pink hair with a bright sheen and 2 large white horns on her forehead. She had large grey eyes and was wearing a kimono. She held herself like a noble and walked with grace.

Fran tried to compose himself, to prepare for a conversation and tried to wake up Ferdinand. 

Ferdinand woke and quickly realized the situation. He was quick to compose himself and got down from the sled, holding  himself nobly to talk to the kijin. He was holding his hands behind himself and was clasping one on the iron grip of another to release tension somewhere. He really was a master at this. 

The Kijin stopped in front of him, and after an incredibly short analysis, she began to speak. "Hello, would you be the party from Ehrenfest?" She posed the question first, though she likely already knew the answer considering how she was composing herself. 

Ferdinand examined her lightly as well, gripping his off hand tighter as a result, then finally spoke. "Yes, we have a party of 7, 4 adults and 3 children. I am High Priest Ferdinand." He gave his title before his name, signifying he thought it more important, despite it being lower than his real title. Though I shouldn't know about that. 

The Kijin responded to this immediately. "We have, on request of Baron Velyard of Blumund, reserved a hotel suite for your party. It has 5 rooms and a kitchen, as well as a bath-house. I trust these accommodations are to your standards?" To our standards? That was beyond our standards. It felt too good for us, in all honestly. The bath-house caught my interest though. I had seen a large bathhouse opposing the plaza, but a private one as well? 

Ferdinand was caught in the surprise of this as well, and quickly agreed to take up the reservation after hearing the price, merely 6 golden coins for our group. Benno could have afforded that on his own. 

After this the kijin called a goblina, somehow, could they speak to each other non-verbally? She then left the scene, using a skill I assumed. There was a simple flash where she was standing and she was gone. The other kijin had long entered the plaza now, so we could no longer see them. 

The Goblina, they were the female hobgoblins, introduced herself. "Hello, I will be your guide, my name is Haruna. Shuna-sama must go deal with other matters, though she will come contact you again." She said it in the most polite tone she could, and honestly she was incredibly cute. She was probably a foot and a half taller than Tuuli. She had the same grey hair all the other goblins had, though hers was very well kept and pretty full. The pressure coming off her was a bit bigger than the town guards we had seen, though she was clearly not a warrior. Perhaps she was simply acquainted with magic? 

To this Ferdinand gestured to Benno to have the cart follow Haruna. He appeared to be impressed, so he was more than happy to do so. After this he walked along with Haruna, only a short few feet behind her, though still a respectful distance.  

As we rolled along at a relatively slower pace, I started picking up on things I had missed before while seeing the strong monsters all over the place. The buildings all being tightly packed and neatly organized. Very intentionally made to integrate the homes and businesses of the citizens, in a mixed use format. 

Along with this in front of almost every building on the edge of the road was a stand that was either trading some of the most expensive looking goods I'd seen, fruits, apparel, jewelry, food, cloth, weapons, armor, and even some selling various kinds of fish. 

The ones that particularly drew my attention at the moment were the food stands. The smell of meats and doughs was constantly wafting in the air and it made me very hungry. It seemed almost intentional that there was a stand to get food constantly  nearby. The one that made me the most envious however was the tappenyaki stand, with the tappen grill sizzling loudly as I smelled the strong scent of meats grilling. It was quite alluring but I held myself back. 

The houses were all very expensive looking. Likely all of them were better than even the higher city homes in Ehrenfest, far better than even Blumund, all of it's homes were only equal to or better than the middle-city homes back in Ehrenfest. Many homes had gardens growing right out of the walls, and gardens of flowers of various rare breeds growing right in front of their windows. The doors and roof seals were lined with intricate patterns on some homes that had clearly been made with great care. 

Some homes had stained windows designs on the doors or some of their windows, depicting either families of monsters, or battles against strong foes, or some that simply had the blue flag with the black dragon, the flag of Tempest. 

I saw one stand that was selling many books, though the paper looked far thicker than it should be, the covers were far better than anything we had managed to make back in Ehrenfest, many of the covers having cover arts and intricate patterns inlayed on the spines. It made me quite jealous as I puffed out my cheeks a bit.  

It only took us a few minutes to get the the hotel, It was a small plaza with several suites situated in a rectangle with a small wooded area in the middle. I wondered why they had left the trees there, though it was a nice thought. We had left the cart next to our suite and the horses were led to the stables by one of the hobgoblins and Fran. 

I had noticed my mother felt out of place in a situation this luxurious, so I tried to comfort her a bit with a hug. Which she quickly returned. While my mother was very respectful and nice, our family was lowborn so she had very little experience with stuff like this in her simple life. Her name was Effa. 

I took my mother's hand and held it tightly while looking up at her. 

She kneeled down to me and tilted her head, though her face still had that kinda lost expression she had before. 

I tightly hugged her around her shoulders the moment she got low enough for me to do so. "You are with me, so you should be here." I whispered to her while keeping hold of her. 

She hugged me back and I could feel the tension in her shoulders release a bit. "You know, sometimes you seem to know just what to say." She then picked me up and started walking to the door of the suite. 

After our tender moment we entered the suite as well. Benno was unpacking with help of Lutz and Tuuli, while Ferdinand was planning how to split the rooms. Ultimately he came up with a plan he thought best for everyone, He would get the primary room, while Fran and my mother would each get their own rooms. The other two rooms were split, with me and Tuuli being in one, and Benno and Lutz sharing the other.

While my mother was lowborn, both Fran and Ferdinand had come to have a certain amount of respect for her, as she was very polite and well mannered, and had raised me and Tuuli incredibly well. 

Now to talk about this place, it was likely 3 times the size of our family's house in the lower city, and even larger than Ferdinand's quarters in the temple, which to me was simply astounding. Along with this the windows were even larger than those in the rest of the city, and were insulated by double pane as well, along with this the walls were thick and likely better insulated than the walls in Blumund. The suites' common room was well furnished and had an eccentric pattern, and a carpeted floor. The furniture was of very high quality, like even better than Ferdinand's own furniture. All of it was intricately and carefully dyed and built with care, many of the pieces having metal riveting to make it look fancier, though the metal was dyed black to make it less eccentric and less flashy. While some were line with the fur of what were likely Tempest wolves, though I assumed it was harvested from grooming and then sanitized before use considering it seemed nothing had skin. Some of the furniture had pillows with silk pillowcases, though I had to avoid those myself. 

The kitchen was large and had some appliances I hadn't even seen in my old world, and a few that I knew were only from my old world. The tiled floor was cool, but it wasn't uncomfortably so, and the stove was powered by mana, it appeared someone with mana simply had to adjust the dial, and touch the rune to turn it on. Other appliances such as mixers were similarly powered by mana. It was very impressive, though I doubted my mother and Tuuli would be able to use them. It may dangerous for me to use them, as well. Though there was a solution to this. 

Haruna left a small bag of stones in one of the cabinets and then said, "If you need to use the appliances, please simply hold the stone while touching the rune. There is a manual for how long a stone can run each appliance in the cabinet." This is what she said to the party, as if they had thought of everything. 

After unpacking Lutz came over to me and asked to go and see the yard. I followed him out there, and while it was small it had a patio with a large table and an umbrella. along with this there was in fact a bath-house, with two sections, out in the yard. It was made of a wood that looked very expensive and one I glanced inside I realized it was a Japanese style bath-house, though a small one for only 2 people to use at a time. This left me astounded, all this stuff from my old world. 

Once we were left acquainted with everything, Haruna made her leave. Though she left us with a small stone we could use to call for assistance from the attendants of the hotel. Ferdinand was left completely baffled, he had a completely unreadable look on his face again. 

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3rd pov: 

'I thought I'd never see any of these things recreated, but here they are, even improved over what I saw in the girls memories.' Ferdinand though to himself as he kept up his poker face, not wanting anyone to gauge what he was thinking about, even if they couldn't see him now. He was currently in the bathhouse alone.

While sitting in the water calmly he thought about how all these things could have been made, and he came to a conclusion, that slime simply must be an other worlder. There is no other possibility. While he knew of other worlders and their strength, the only one he knew personally was Myne. She was a young child though, even if she was once an adult. He didn't expect her to live long, with the amount of mana she possessed, even if she became a noble and was allowed to perform magic to her full content, she would likely still have too much mana. At the very least he wanted the girl to be useful to all the people she could and live a happy life, even if it'd be short.

It simply wasn't enough, he knew the girl was nearing her own death and he wasn't sure there was anything he could do about it now. Though he had to take these thoughts out of his mind to think further about the monster nations. Those Kijin, each of them was a monster among monsters. He couldn't get a read on them as they were hiding their power, but he knew they were strong. 

'This will be interesting, I just hope it isn't fatal.' He thought as he began to get tired. 

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--3241 words, revised 25/11/2021, originally 2708 words--

--Myne does not possess any skills except [Frail Body], meaning her magicules are broadly unfocused--

--Benno possess a basic skill, [Keen Trader], this skill allows him to accurately assess a product and it's potential on the market. While it was not mentioned, that skill was going crazy during this chapter--

(AN: I hope you all enjoyed this chapter. I had a fun time writing it while listening to music.)