Black Shadow | Souei

Chapter 20: The Last Chapter

After the battle with Charybdis and the megalodons, the village was plentiful with resources from the scales Milim had cleanly piled on the forest floor to the massive amounts of fish from the sharks to the tonnes of wood from the uprooted trees. They worked to pile all the resources together to have Rimuru devour it with his [Predator] to bring back to the village with ease.

Once they got back to the village, the sun had set. Kumiko had gone ahead to announce their return and to help gather materials to being preparing their feast for tonight. After all, minus that shark Kumiko had froze, the others needed to be cooked quickly. Hakurou stopped in the middle of the town on an open road once they arrived in the village as residents gathered across from him. Rimuru quickly spit out the frozen shark that he had carried back inside of him onto a tarp that Rigurd and Geld had laid out. Rimuru then swiftly moved onto delivering Charybdis' scales to Kurobe and Kaijin. Meanwhile, Hakurou was in a stance to fight, one hand on his blade at his left hip.

"Now, do it!" Hakurou commanded. Across from him, Rigurd and Geld lifted up the dead megalodons that Kumiko had frozen. The shark had been chilled to perfection for sashimi. Therefore, they were going to make good use of the fish and serve it for dinner. Rigurd and Geld simultaneously launched the shark towards Hakurou, who swiftly filleted the fish in a matter of seconds.

"Amazing! You're the best, Master!" Gobta complimented cheerfully. "One neatly filleted Megalodon!"

"A task simple enough to achieve before breakfast... or dinner, in this case," Hakurou bragged slightly with a laugh.

On another strip of the village road, Kurobe, Kaijin, and the three dwarf brothers stared at the mound of scales in front of them. It was twice the height of the dwarves at least and even towered over Kurobe.

"It's so light..." Kaijin noted as he tapped two scales against one another. A light metallic ring sounded from the contact, clean and crisp through the cold, night air. "And so hard. I bet we could use this."

"It'll make some nice weapons," Kurobe agreed as he picked up another scale to examine for himself.

"It could be a shield, too. Or we could even work it into some armor," Garm added beside his brothers.

"We could even make some simple accessories with it," Dord commented. "They'd fetch a high price for sure."

Myrd nodded and hummed his agreements.

At the center of the village around the fountain, various tables and two large pots of cooking megalodon was featured as well as a boat of sashimi-ed megalodon was served, the mouth of the shark wide open at the helm. Rimuru could've sworn that he saw Kumiko try to shove Gabiru into the shark's mouth, but when he doubled back, she was standing beside Souei who had an arm draped around her shoulder, almost as if keeping her there, while Gabiru was across the courtyard with his loyal servants, seemingly trying to escape Kumiko's view. Thankfully for Gabiru, Geld had made his way into Kumiko's line of sight of Gabiru while holding two cups of alcohol.

"Geld, that was some splendid fighting!" Gabiru commented as he accepted one of the cups that Geld offered to him. They brought the two cups together with a light clink sound. "Your courage set an example I'd like to follow!"

"You were unstoppable yourself, Gabiru! I can't express my admiration enough!" Geld replied happily.

"Oh, no, Geld!" Gabiru insisted.

"Oh, no, Gabiru!" Geld insisted back. The two of the laughed at their compliments to each other and joyously enjoyed the alcohol with the three dragonnewts with Gabiru quickly complimenting them both.

On the other side, Benimaru had made his way over to Souei and Kumiko with three cups of alcohol. Handing a cup each to Souei and Kumiko, he took a sip of his own as he and Souei chatted lightly. Souei also took calm sips of his own drink, his arm now wrapped lightly around Kumiko's waist as she held her own cup in both hands.