Chapter 42 - Ophis

Chapter 42 – Ophis

The plates stacked up on the table with shocked people all around.

It's been an hour and Artoria Alter was still eating.

"Quick, more food!" The waiters were very busy with transporting the dishes from the kitchen to the table, then taking the empty plates back to the kitchen.

At this point, all attention was on Artoria; literally no one else was eating. It became a show instead and everyone watched her munch away.

"Hey, whatda reckon the price for all that would be?"

"I don't know man, but it would be a lot."

"Does she have enough money?"

"Why are you asking me?"

The thing is, without interruption, she could probably go on for another day, but it just happened that this moment was when Rimuru and Ciel wrapped up their game.

Those who were relaxing on the beach saw an obvious retreat in the water.

The lifeguards noticed this and rushed to the helplines, whilst others evacuated everyone.

Artoria suddenly stood up, then a massive earthquake struck. Rubble began to fall, plates collapsed, people fell over and everyone was in chaos.

Maybe, if this was the normal Artoria, she would try and expend effort to help people, but...

(An earthquake?)

She did not even have that thought in mind.

Her attention was attracted to the strange and sudden disaster.

Amidst the chaos, she easily left the building and jumped from building to building until she had a clear view of the coast.

In the distance, she saw a massive wave heading towards land.

(I've never seen a tsunami that big before... It must exceed at least 200 meters!

... Yeah, the people here are fked... good luck dealing with that...)

Disregarding the people, she just simply left.

...

"Oh Medea, you're back."

"Mm, did you enjoy yourself?"

"Of course, I won as well."

"Shut up."

"Heh, oh Ciel. Did we forget something?"

Ciel's sight then travelled to Italy and saw the 200m wave, "no"

"Oh, feels like something was forgotten, nevermind then."

*Ding "Oh Artoria, you're back too."

"Yeah, everyone's here?"

"Apparently, just in time for lunch too."

"I'll get cooking then."

And then they lived happily ever after...

...

Meanwhile:

"WHAT!" A very angry god was looking at this from the sky.

"Hey Poseidon, I think you should sort this out then."

"Sort this out? I would love to but that wave is not natural. I can't control things that aren't natural."

"Why are you relying on your divinity so much? Just use your own strength dimwit! If you don't, it wouldn't be just Italy that floods!"

"But I would exhaust myself."

"Your soooo lazy."

"Fine, I'll go then."

With a sigh and a look of defeat, Poseidon headed down and landed on the sand.

A small shockwave was generated but it didn't harm anyone since they all evacuated.

"Haahhhh, this is gonna be tiring. There better not be anyone watching" Talking to himself, he summoned his weapon, a trident, and stabbed the end of it into the ground.

Gentle ripples of light echoed from the trident and headed towards the approaching wave. It then spread into the water, effectively making it stop.

After this step, Poseidon then tried to reverse the wave, but this was the part he feared most. He felt a tough resistant force acting against him, and his defence began to shiver.

In the distance, Ciel looked in that direction, (oh? Let's see how much you can struggle...)

His body was slowly pushed back against the sand, and the wave also slowly crawled forward.

"Dammit..." Clenching his teeth, he pushed himself and took one step forward, once again neutralising the movement of the tsunami, but it only held for a couple seconds before he was pushed back again.

"Everyone's watching but no-ones helping... I can't stand them honestly..."

"I'll... help." Despite the pain in his muscles, he heard this voice quite clearly.

Turning his head round, he saw a young girl, looking around 15, wearing all black and blue. Her irises were an extremely deep colour and although the young look, the confidence and knowledge shown in her eyes juxtaposed her appearance.

She wore a gothic dress, with some ribbons stretching across.

Her voice was also very quiet, and feminine, but Poseidon didn't dwell on these thoughts one bit, as he knew exactly who she was.

His eyes widened, "Ophis?"

"Hm."

This was Ophis, the Dragon of Infinity.

She was one of the two dragon gods that are unrivalled in terms of strength. Ophis the embodiment of infinity, and Great Red the embodiment of dreams. As the embodiment of infinity, she was completely immortal and had infinite strength. However, despite this she was perhaps still a bit too immature for her age.

She doesn't really understand humans too much, and is very easily manipulated. She used to live in the dimensional gap, but according to her, Great Red kicked her out and all this time she has been trying to go back. She calls it 'regaining her silence', whatever that means.

Existing since the dawn of creation, she has seen many things. This is why she knew that the tsunami was unnatural and suspicious. She would never normally help the self-proclaimed gods out, but this time she also wanted to investigate. Ever since a couple months ago, the universe has been a mess. She felt multiple merge together by an unknown force, but didn't think too much about it.

This time though, her curiosity got the better of her.

Putting her small delicate hands on the muscular Poseidon, she channelled a bit of her power, and all of a sudden the wave was instantly solved.

The water gracefully flowed back into the ocean like nothing ever happened.

"I am grateful." Even the arrogant Poseidon could only be respectful and bow in the presence of such a being.

"Mm." Nodding without a reply, she looked back at the retreating wave and walked straight into the ocean.

The resistance of the water seemed to have no effect on her, just like with Ciel and Rimuru.

Poseidon looked at her disappearing body, and stood there until she was completely out of view, then he left.

He had a lot to boast about, being helped by one of the world's strongest beings.

He also had to cover this incident up from the public. But he had the other gods to help him with that, so he wasn't worried too much about it.

...

After a peaceful and relaxing lunch, followed by a peaceful and relaxing first half of the afternoon, an unexpected knocking sound disturbed the atmosphere.

It was Medea who got up and opened the door. She saw a crimson-haired and blue-eyed man who appeared to be in their early 20s. He smiled and gestured for permission to come in.

Seeing Rimuru's silent reply, she nodded and he walked in.

"Good afternoon. My name is Sirzechs Lucifer of the Gremory clan. May I ask who you are?"

Rimuru responded first, "Lucifer? I'm Rimuru Tempest."

"I'm his wife Ciel Tempest." A voice sounded from the kitchen at this moment, but she did not appear before him.

"I'm Medea."

"Salter."

"Good afternoon to you all. I have some questions if you don't mind."

"Oh, no please sit down. There's not really anything else to do to be honest."

"Thank you."

(Medea, what did you do?)

(I may have accidentally teleported into his library, which was most likely forbidden. But I'm sure I didn't leave any traces...)

(Hmm, it's probably being careless.)

(I'm so sorry!)

(No, don't be. Leave this situation to me.)

(Do you need me to kill him?)

(No... don't do that. I'll sort it out don't worry.)

(If you say so.)

Rimuru got up and sat opposite to him at the table.

"How may I help you then?"

"Glad you asked. You see, earlier today, someone intruded into my property unannounced and uninvited. I saw this as a kind of offense, and if you don't mind I would like to question some people here."

"Why here though? And what did they do?"

"To be fair, they didn't do anything. Heck, I don't even know if someone was really there, but my alarm system sounded and we found some clues which led to here."

"Oh, fair enough. It was Medea there."

"Huh?" She was, as expected, very confused.

"I don't like to beat around the bush or anything, so I'll just say it now, it's Medea. She didn't mean to though, it was a teleportation gone wrong, you understand right?"

"I perfectly understand, and thank you for being so honest. Although I have to ask, how did you manage to escape and even go in without being noticed? Not even teleportation could do that."

"Well, it was really a sort of accident. I used an 'ancient otherworldly relic'. It was my bad I should've checked what it did first, but other than that I don't really know anything."

"Can I check this relic?"

"Well... sorry about that, it's been used up."

"Oh, well at least I got some answers. This also confirms-"

*knock *knock

"Sorry, please go ahead. I'll continue this conversation later."

Effectively blending into the background, he made his entire presence seemingly invisible-

A small girl dressed in black walked in.

-only to break out of it and have his eyes wide open and his jaw on the floor.

"Ophis?!"

"Hm? You know her?"

"She's..."

"I'm Ophis... you are... the creator's... successor right?"

"Creator's successor? If you're talking about Veldanava then I probably am, but you can just call me Rimuru."

"Okay Rimuru... why are... you here?"

A vague question, but he understood it perfectly.

(She seem to have an ultimate skill... well not quite. It's more like an intrinsic skill. Ophis... she should be the dragon of infinity in this world. Why is she here?)

"I'm here to have fun, what about you?"

"Have... fun?"

"Yes. You see, staying in the same place for too long will get boring, so I came here instead. You should've sensed when I first arrived right?"

"Mm."

"Good, but why are you here now?"

"A... giant wave... almost killed everyone... but I saved them... and I found traces... of underwater battle... and led me here."

"A giant wave...? CIEL!"

"I didn't tell you because it was insignificant." Her voice echoed.

"It would've been easy... for the god... but then some... unknown force helped the wave... and got stronger... so I had to help."

"Stronger? CIEL!"

"I'M SORRY!"

"So you tracked us through the unknown force?"

"Mm."

"Wait what?" A very shocked and confused Sirzechs interrupted the conversation.

"You're irrelevant in this, begone." With a flick of his hand, Rimuru banished him to the shadow realm, also known as Ciel.

"Please remove the relevant memories. I will consider lightening your punishment if you do a good enough job." She didn't even respond and just nodded, head down with a blush and a pouting face.

"Anyway, Ophis, you've got your answer, are you going to leave now?"

"Question... is having fun... better than being alone?"

"Yeah, of course it is. Why?"

"I... am bored... and want to have fun too"

"You're more than welcome to join us if you want." Once again, Rimuru's manipulation mode was turned on. Medea and Artoria who was watching this facepalmed, since they also experienced and fell to such persuasion themselves, but still, they didn't hate him for it or regret it.

"Join you? Sorry... I have... another place to be."

"Oh, that's unfortunate, but if you want you can still come here to visit you know?"

"Visit?"

"Yeah, even on the days we're closed. If you want, come drop by to say hi. The menu is also very good as I made it myself."

"That... works. But if... they don't let me?"

"Let you? Let me ask, are you the strongest there?"

"Yes."

"What do you do there then?"

"They want my snakes."

"Your snakes?"

"Mm... it has some... of my strength... and they wish to use it."

"Ahh, I see. So they want you to give them strength, in return they give you a place to stay and a place to be comfortable with."

"Yes... They also made me their leader."

"I can see why, as the strongest obviously you would be the leader. I don't see why you can't ask them for breaks."

"Can I?"

"Of course. If you want to visit, just ask them for a break. Since you are their leader and the strongest, can they really object to your decisions? Trust me, every time you want to come here, just ask them."

"Mm... I'll do that then... snake?"

Soon, an ominous looking snake made from black mist manifested itself from her hair, and slithered across her neck and up her arm. It then straightened up and hissed at Rimuru with its tongue.

"Umm, sure? Does this hurt you?"

"No... I have infinite."

"Oh yeah, makes sense. Anyway, thanks. This makes for a perfect pet."

"Your... welcome... I have to go now... they are calling me."

"No problem, drop by when you can!"

"I will." She then disappeared.

"So what do we do with this snake then?"

"Didn't you say to make it a pet?"

"Well, I did say that, but look at it. It would scare away customers."

"What do we do then?"

"Idk"

"Let me have it" Ciel came out of the kitchen, dragging Sirzech's body on the floor.

Disregarding it, she rushed to the snake in Rimuru's hand and carried it.

From the snake's perspective, she looked like a true devil. The red eyes permeated it's soul and it stared at her like predator and prey. It quickly shrunk in a circle and curled up.

"Hey, your scaring it! Anyway, I still need to give you your punishment. No taste buds for a week!"

"NOO!"

"Yes. Now sit!"

For some reason or another, Ciel sat down obediently on the ground. The snake then crawled back into Rimuru's hand where it made itself comfortable.

"Go deal with this Sirzechs or whatever."

*sigh fine." With a heavy imaginary heart she left whilst once again dragging his body against the floor.

In front, a pure-black portal opened and both vanished inside it.

"I've decided, we will keep the snake as a pet. It will be a her, and her name is Kuro, which means black. Perfect for her right?"

Both nodded in acceptance, and maybe a bit of surprise.

(Normally his naming sense is terrible. What caused such a change today?)

The snake also looked at Rimuru in reverence, as if he's her saviour, which to an extent he was.