Black Shadow | Souei

Chapter 11: Gabiru is Here!

Rimuru was proud to say that Kumiko warmed up to all the other kijin rather quickly and easily fit in. She was becoming more expressive and opening up exponentially quickly to the other Kijin. The kijin all soon became a tight group of their own, spending their extra time with the others and even sometimes working together.

A week or more ago, Kumiko had indeed leaped down from the hill the group was standing on to engage Hakurou in a fight. She scared the older ogre when she suddenly appeared next to him and offered him a friendly fight. Hakurou looked up and saw Benimaru and Souei, who both nodded, indicating that they told her. He smirked in response and accepted Kumiko's duel. Needless to say, he respected Kumiko a great deal after she had left him laying in the dust without using her abilities.

Kumiko's position within the group of Kijin seemed to solidify as the days went by. She maintained her position as Rimuru's advisor, though Rimuru was currently debating whether or not to reassign her, as well as the overseer of the village and head of security. However, the difference was now instead of disappearing off into the forest alone, she could be found either scouting with Souei, having mock fights with Hakurou, discussing ways to avenge the villagers with Benimaru, or hanging around Shuna and Shion. Surprisingly, Kumiko was possibly the only one to be able to control the two of them once they started fighting over Rimuru. As for Kurobe, he hung out at lot around Kaijin, so while Kumiko and him got along splendidly, it was more rare to see her spending time with him.

About Kumiko's position, Rimuru was considering to reassign her to work with Souei in scouting and securing the village. Shion had been assigned as his secretary and worked closely with Kumiko for the time being since Kumiko was still his advisor. However, a lot of their work overlapped and it ended up in a lack of things for both Shion and Kumiko to do. After discussing it slightly with Kumiko, she agreed that she would allow Shion to take over majority of her tasks and Kumiko would instead focus more on security. Rimuru quickly agreed, though felt like she should still get an official reassignment. Along with her current tasks as head of security, she seemed to do best out in the field and defending the village. In addition, her and Souei seemed to have similar powers, especially their abilities with shadows and stealth.

He also secretly wanted to stick her to Souei since she seemed to have bonded with him. Perhaps it was because he was the one to comfort her or that they worked a lot together as head of security and a scout, but they were comfortable together. He wanted to see Kumiko rely more on the Kijin, or even just Souei.

The goblins themselves took a while to get used to seeing Kumiko around the village more, and seemed to either panic or stare in awe as she smiled and laughed a lot more. For the months that they spent together, they had rarely ever seen her smile, and even less laugh. Now, it seemed like a regular occurrence. She was still serious when it came to carrying out her tasks, but when she relaxed, her emotions were not longer suppressed and she gladly chatted and laughed with the rest of the Kijin. Rimuru was glad she was opening up to the other Kijin, but still felt a pang of sadness. He wasn't able to be the one Kumiko relied on, and so he felt slightly down since he wanted to be a worthy master to them all. Regardless, he pushed down the feeling and simply basked in the shining aura that Kumiko had begun to emit in her joy.

Throughout the village, Myrd had been busy upgrading the houses from their fabric huts to wooden cabins. He and Kumiko had finalized the plans for the roads and where to build houses and whatnot, so they set to work right away. With all the goblins and Kijin busy, the village was expanding rapidly. Shuna had taken it upon herself to help the artisans by introducing silk cloth made from Hellmoth cocoons. Due to the amount of magicules in the silk due to the Hellmoths, the material was very sturdy. Shuna seemed to enjoy weaving, so Rimuru had given her her own building as her workshop as well as a loom made by Kaijin.