(Rimuru POV)
"Alright, guys! Finally, Tempest's entire cabinet is actually able to meet. Even though it's been two weeks, I wanna congratulate everyone on their part in where we've come so far on this journey. If someone had told me when I wandered into this tiny, nearly unlivable little goblin village that we'd come this far in just a few years, I'd have asked them what they were taking!" My joke got a few laughs, "But we've made it. As a Demon Lord, I've been granted the status of official ruler of the entire Great Forest of Jura. But obviously, that doesn't mean that you can just sit back on your haunches because you're the subordinates of a Demon Lord, you hear?!"
"Of course!" Rigurd exclaimed.
"Now, we have to work twice as hard! More than that!" Rigur agreed. The others chimed in with their agreements, too.
Then, Benimaru realized something. "Wait, you've been given oversight of the whole Great Forest of Jura?"
"Yeah, what's wrong with that?" I wondered.
"We'll talk about that later, Big Bro. It's not that big of a deal." Risa interjected for Benimaru.
"She's right. We can deal with that later, once we're all on the same page." Shuna agreed, "First comes the debriefing."
So, that's what we did. We each gave a rundown of everything of worth that'd transpired over the last few weeks, since we launched our offensive against Clayman.
Benimaru gave a brief report of the overall battle with Clayman's forces, their few casualties, how we'd won, and how Chia had been 'born'.
Soei chimed in explaining that it was official. The last of the Moderate Harlequin Alliance had been killed by him personally during the battle. He'd made sure of it, and most of their memories had flowed into Mnemosyne as their souls got passed up to me through Aether to back that up.
He also gave a brief report on how the Council of the West was taking the news of my Demon Lordification, before apologizing for being unable to infiltrate Lubelius, the city headquarters for the Western Holy Church.
It was about as I'd expected. Around 65-70% of the smaller countries that comprised the Council were staunchly against letting us Tempestian 'warmongers' anywhere near.
There were even talks about hiring some 'Hero' named Masayuki to deal with us, but it was mostly just talk. Nobody was actually willing to take the heat for that, after Risa's whole 'White Purge' debacle.
And obviously, Lubelius was impossible for Soei to infiltrate. Not only was the whole place basically the epitome of perfect anti-monster defense, but it was also the territory of an Octogram member capable of bypassing Veldora's Pain Nullification.
"Don't worry about it, Soei. The intel you got from the Western Nations is more than enough. Focus your attention on them for now, specifically Englesia, the places directly surrounding New Farminus, and Siltrozzo." I advised my Shadow.
If at all possible, I didn't particularly want to antagonize Demon Lord Valentine. I was comfortable with taking a reactive stance with the whole church thing for now.
While their part in the whole 'Farmus attack' thing was undeniable, all they'd really done was supply the barrier to that Reyheim guy when he asked for support to attack some 'monsters'. As far as military aid, they'd only sent people to operate the actual barriers, not any of their heavy hitters or anything.
If they had, Tempest would not be standing right now, but neither would Lubelius or New Farminus. I wouldn't have held Risa back at all, and Veldora would probably have joined in, releasing that terrifying Set skill upon them all, buffed by Isis and Horus. In appreciation for the fact that the war hadn't gone that far, I wanted to let the matter rest if at all possible.
I really hoped that the church would feel the same way. We already had enough on our plates right now.
"I understand. I will only endeavor to enter Lubelius if I am certain that I cannot be detected in any way." I wasn't entirely certain that Soei fully understood what I was trying to say… but whatever.
Time for the last report. The one I wanted to hear the most, from-
"Understood. It is time for my report." Althea started.
"Wait, wait!" I stopped her. "Risa, you're not getting out of this one! It's your report! You make it!"
She may have forgotten, but the way that Risa had systematically purged everyone in Farmus that she didn't like was absolutely unacceptable, even if it'd mostly turned out okay, she'd definitely made Tempest some serious enemies with that one. The Western Nations were in an uproar, half of them absolutely certain that they'd be next. Even Englesia, the regional powerhouse, was making moves, just in case. It may have completely closed off Tempest's chances of getting a place in the Western Council the normal way.
Because of that, all of the various responsibilities I'd put on her, such as dealing with the handover of Dhistav, babysitting Chia when necessary, and setting up New Farminus's new government, backing the people in charge there, were punishments.
As such, while she needed Althea and her White Force to help her out, I wasn't about to let Risa just toss all of it onto Althea's lap and goof off.
The report was hers to make.
With a sigh, she started talking from Althea's arms. "...Fiine."
Risa started her report off with the situation in Dhistav. To make a long story short, her subordinates, Iroh and Ira, were working with the local Dark Elves to reorganize the place, with Adalmann and his people in charge of defense, but only for now.
There were three major problems, apparently, with how things were currently working.
Problem 1: Adalmann didn't want to stay there, defending that land forever. He expressed a powerful desire to move to Tempest under my employ. Apparently, he'd decided to devote himself to his God and Goddess, me and Risa.
He didn't particularly wish to work under Milim, when she finally took complete control of the place.
As such, Milim would be short a standing military force once she actually took over the area. Technically, that wasn't really our problem, and she did have the military forces to deal with it, but it'd still be a major irritation from Milim's perspective. She'd have to pull forces from her other domains to deal with the abnormally high amount of monsters that just randomly appeared in that barren wasteland on a normal, everyday basis, since the actual standing army was still in Eurazania, serving as prisoners of war.
But at the end of the day, that wasn't our problem. Nothing we could do about it. Offering our own forces to aid would simply be rude and pointless.
Problem 2: Clayman's aides were the only ones with any sort of commanding ability there. The dark elves had their own command structure, so they were keeping everything in check for now, but Clayman hadn't put much care into anything beyond his own personal castle. The small villages, and even the capitol city itself, were all held together by the equivalent of twigs and toothpaste.
The entire place needed a massive overhaul of just about everything. As it stood, they couldn't even survive without external aid. Before, that'd come in the form of trade with the Eastern Empire, but that was all under Clayman. Without him heading it all, Dhistav honestly didn't have much of anything. It was just a swampy wasteland where nothing grew… but then, Risa hit me with Problem 3.
Problem 3: Apparently, Iroh and Ira had learned that there were multiple gigantic abandoned cities beneath the surface of Dhistav. Apparently, the Dark Elves had been tasked with defending those ancient cities since back when they were in operation, under the Demon Lord Kazalim, then later under Clayman, who apparently made regular voyages into these cities to sell off the high-quality magical items that'd been soaking up magicules inside for centuries upon centuries.
As such, we knew that the defenses inside those ruins were still active. Anyone weaker than the average Demon Lord seed would actually be in serious danger the moment that they set foot in there.
But… Risa's description of Problem 3 gave me an idea. One shared glance, and I was certain that she'd already had the same idea.
"Alright, Risa. I'm gonna leave all that in your hands." Normally, I'd wanna go to the Free Guild and lay the formal preparation all at the feet of their exploration team, but unfortunately, I was 100% certain that letting anyone affiliated with the Guild other than Fuze would lead to Yuuki setting off the city's defenses. Since he was working so closely with Kagali, Kazalim's new body, he surely knew exactly how to blow up the entire place with my subordinates inside.
So, I just left the entire thing to Risa instead. It may have been easy to forget sometimes, with how she acted, but she was the Lord of Curiosity. She could figure out how to deal with problems like that better than anyone else, when she put her mind to it.