Rimuru and Iruma's Adventures in the Netherworld

Love & War

Rimuru POV

Sipping my coffee and working through some paperwork in my office, I enjoy the quiet of the early morning. The city of Rimuru is quiet now that the festival has concluded, but now I have to sift through a bunch of after-work associated with it. Whenever you have a party, there's always clean-up afterward, and festivals are just scaled-up, widespread parties if you think about it.

Yeah, a lot of the trouble that comes with hosting something like this never makes it to my hands, but that doesn't mean that none of it reaches me, which leads to what I'm taking care of right now.

A soft knock breaks my quiet and a blue-haired head pokes its way inside. It's Iruma, of course. I told him as long as the door isn't locked, that he's allowed to enter my office. When I'm not here or possibly meeting with someone important, the door isn't able to be opened by anyone without authorization, but when I'm just doing busy work like this, I don't bother securing it. There are guards and such around that wouldn't let anyone suspicious in the building anyway, so this isn't a concern.

Without looking up from my work, I can see that he's accompanied by the maid I assigned to him, silently standing against the wall, her eyes calmly directed at the floor. As far as I understand, after the little incident of her 'losing' Iruma (that totally wasn't my fault, don't get the wrong idea), she's been sticking even closer to him. Not under my orders, but of her own choice, or possibly that of her boss. I'm not sure about Iruma's thoughts on this, but if asked, I bet he wouldn't be able to say no unless he was very against it.

"Mornin'." I mutter while continuing to write on the paper I'm currently working on.

"Are you busy today?"

"Kinda. If you're wanting to do something together later, I can only give you a maybe."

"Oh...um, well...I just thought that maybe we could visit the Netherworld for the day and do something with Azz and Clara."

That sounds like more fun than this paperwork, but I don't want to deal with Shuna's scolding if I sneak off before finishing this up...

Another knock on my door happens before I can respond to Iruma.

"Aw shoot, it's 9 already?" I mutter to myself, realizing that I'd lost track of the time while delving deep into my work.

"Oh, do you have a meeting or something? I'll just leave."

"No, no, you can stay, Iruma. This'll be quick, I promise."

I wave my hand at the nearby couch and Iruma takes a seat off to the side.

I guess my omission of Katelyn's name signaled to her that she should leave because as soon as I say this, she started toward the door. Honestly, I didn't care either way whether she stayed since she is someone that works directly for my executives and important guests, but I don't feel the need to stop her either. Plus, this isn't gonna be anything confidential anyway.

"Come on in, Ultima."

"L-lady Ultima?" Katelyn fearfully mutters with wide eyes.

Yup, this is about the expected reaction from any of the maids when it comes to Ultima and to a lesser extent Carrera, which is why most of the maids try to give them a wide breadth. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the maids with seniority had developed an actual detection skill to avoid the two of them given how good they are at it. And yet poor Katelyn finds her only means of escape blocked by the very thing she'd want to avoid.

The door flies open and the purple-haired girl steps inside all the while Katelyn quickly shuffles out the door, avoiding eye contact with Ultima as though she was Medusa and looking would mean a fate worse than death.