True God In Another World (Tensura x Tbate)

Chapter 113 - Before the Storm

Rimuru POV

Art had barely stepped through the gate — Sylvie still chirping something annoyed as the shimmer swallowed her up — when the whole thing just folded shut, like it had never even been there. No dramatic collapse, no lingering glow, nothing cinematic about it. One second it existed, the next it didn't, and about two hundred soldiers were left standing around blinking at empty air, trying to process what they'd just watched happen in the span of an afternoon.

I stood there a beat longer than I needed to, just staring at the patch of nothing where the gate used to be.

Should've gone through with him. That was the practical answer, the one Ciel would've backed a hundred times out of a hundred if I'd asked her. Efficient. Clean. Get home, get ahead of things, start setting up for what's coming instead of sitting around a fire pretending I had the luxury of time to spare.

But some stuff doesn't run on efficiency. Never has, not for me, not really, no matter how much I like to pretend otherwise.

I turned around and walked back to my friends, who were all looking at me like I'd sprouted a second head somewhere in the last thirty seconds.

"Ri, something wrong?" Lily stepped forward first, that little crease showing up between her brows, the one I'd learned meant I am one wrong answer away from actually worrying about you. "I thought you were leaving with them."

"Nah, it's—" I scratched the back of my head, stalling on purpose while I figured out how much of the real reason I actually wanted to hand over. "It's been a while since we were all together. Figured I'd stick around a bit longer."

"But you're leaving eventually, right?" Tess asked.

"Yeah, tomorrow."

"So that's it, huh," Loid said, throwing his hands up like I'd personally ruined his week. "One evening. Great. Love that for us."

"I'm not vanishing, I'm going home. You're all invited — I literally just said that."

"Yeah, 'invited' and 'you actually show up' haven't historically been the same thing with you," Helen said, one eyebrow arching.

Lily was still giving me that look, the slow, careful once-over she did whenever she was trying to work out if I was actually fine or just saying I was fine so the conversation would move on. She was getting better at spotting the difference. Uncomfortably good at it, honestly. I'd have to be more careful around her specifically, going forward — filed that thought away for later, right next to the growing pile of things I needed to be more careful about.

"You sure everything's okay?"

"Everything's fine," I said, and mostly meant it. "Just logistics. Boring adult stuff. You'd be asleep before I finished the second sentence."

"Try me."

"Nope." I popped the p just to watch her expression sour, which, I'll admit, might be one of my favorite small pleasures in this entire life. "Tomorrow. Full story, promise. Tonight I'd like to sit here and not think about reports or debriefs or troop numbers or any of that for a few hours."

Jasmine, not even looking up from whatever she was doing to that knife of hers, said, "Let him have the night off."

"Thank you, Jasmine. See, she gets it." Jasmine, unlike literally everyone else at this fire, understood the value of not poking at things until they bled. I appreciated that about her more than I usually said out loud.

"Doesn't mean I'm not asking again tomorrow," Lily muttered, arms crossed, though some of the stiffness had gone out of her shoulders.

"Wouldn't expect anything less."