Archive Of Potentialities.

Short story: The bane of history 9.

The past few hundred years had a lot of moments I cherished and moments I despised. Despite having the power to do virtually anything, I wasn't free from my own problems. Of course, most of these problems stemmed from within my own mind so it could be said I was my own adversary.

In the beginning, my internal conflict held a massive sway over how I saw things. It caused rifts, fractures in some relationships where one party wanted to maintain the status quo while the other desired something more....substantial.

But gradually as the years went on, I became numb. The things that mattered to me still mattered, I was confident that fact would remain immutable, but other things, not much so. For example, I stopped seeing my subordinates as such at some point, my changing mind only recognizing them as "people I have to take care of", I thought of the other members of the group as "people I stay with", only the way I perceived Veldora, Milim and Chloe remained somewhat the same. Everyone else to me at that point just became "people".

For a being with my power, this level of apathy to the masses opened the way for a lot of undesirable developments.

I hadn't realized this at first and when I eventually did it brought on a whole session of self examination, and at the end of this, with Ciel's help I was able to accept who I had become. I had also set boundaries for myself, vowing to never cross them.

All in all, I was aware of my image as a person once more, so when Damaris asked such a question, I replied without hesitation.

"I am Rimuru Tempest, you can think of me as a god of free will."

I honestly replied.

Since the beginning till now, that was a value of mine that remained firm. I had taken up this moniker after a journey to one of the many worlds in our multiverse.

It was one of my most interesting experiences since I decided to embrace being a god like being for the duration of my stay in that world. At the end of the whole thing the name was collectively given to me by my believers and since it didn't conflict with me, I took a liking to it.

Guy scoffed as he heard my introduction, he always told me the title was cringe.....

Of course he was right...

[[Very true, master.]]

But it served as a constant reminder to me so I bore the weight of the "cringe" name.

"Tempest...." Completely ignoring the part about being a god, Damaris seemed to be connecting the dots between my name and the conversation she witnessed earlier.

"Don't think about it too much, I'm connected to them. That should be enough information for you." I told her as I looked at the Jura Forest from the hill I teleported us to.

"Seeing that guy was interesting, I'm glad to know someone else will suffer because of your recklessness. Where are we going next?" Guy asked as he made a prettty unreasonable statement.

When have I ever been reckless?

[[Log entry number 1, Rimuru Temp-]]

Okay, stop! Stop!

Why does she even have records!?

[[I have records of everything that can be recorded master.]]

Oh yeah......

"Well, Takt and Daria didn't say anything about that so I'll decide on my own. It's time I take care of that pest lurking behind Felken."

Hearing my words, Guy's smile widened significantly. He looked so bizarre that Damaris couldn't stop herself from shivering in fear.