The center of the battlefield.
The massive pillar of water that had swallowed the Demon Lord of Dondu vanished together with the ashen sunlight.
"...It's over."
The battle had been decided.
The great storm that had thrown the great forest into chaos for the first time in three hundred years.
Waaaaaaaah—!!!
As the Goblin Riders—the wolf clan cavalry—and the [Kijin], [Ogre]s who had witnessed the end of their first war let out cries of victory, the madness of the [Orc]s of Dondu, whose minds had been eroded by the [King]'s [Starved], gradually began to subside.
It meant the war between the [Orc]s of Dondu and the [Lizardmen]—and beyond that, a conflict that had engulfed nearly half the great forest—had finally come to an end with the coming of morning.
"......"
"...Your Majesty..."
"......It seems you've finally been set free..."
Among the soldiers who had lost the will to fight, the commanders of the [Orc]s of Dondu who had watched the [King]'s final moments to the very end soon ceased resisting, feeling both grief at their defeat and relief that they had escaped the madness.
They had served at the [King]'s side for a long time, and they knew that even before Gelmud had given him a name, he had always kept sacrificing himself for his people.
To keep raging on and wishing for more war now would have been no different from making his death meaningless.
"...Please... may you rest in peace..."
At last, having accepted defeat, they quietly mourned the [King]'s death as they watched the blue and gray figures approaching from afar.
Until the final moment, when the victors of the war would gather them to decide their punishment.
*
Several hours later, after the war had completely ended.
By then, it was already past noon, and the sun that had once shone in ashen light was now pouring down in bright yellow rays.
By this time, with the help of the [Dryad]s, the parties involved in the war had finished restoring the natural environment damaged by battle and burying the monsters who had died gloriously, and gathered in the [Lizardmen]'s marshlands.
Starting with the [Orc]s of Dondu and the [Lizardmen], then the [Kijin], [Ogre]s, [Goblin]s, [Dryad]s, and even a human and a demon.
It was to settle the postwar cleanup.
"Now then..."
And the person chosen to decide the debate over that cleanup—
"Chairman Adelio. Let's begin."
—had, through tacit unanimous agreement, ended up being Adelio.
"...Wait, why am I suddenly the chairman? Shizu did the most in this war, and Rimuru was the one who led the troops so well."
Having been made to sit in the center of the meeting place almost by force, Adelio whispered to Treyni while doing his best to ignore the burdensome gazes of the other races.
"On top of that, I'm a [Hero]. I'm one of the kinds of people monsters are most wary of, so me getting deeply involved in this... no matter how I think about it, isn't that strange?"
It still had not surfaced openly, but there were probably at least a few defeated soldiers who refused to accept the outcome of this war.
To persuade those remnants, Adelio believed it would be better to leave the postwar settlement to someone like Rimuru—a fellow monster who could judge things without ulterior motives—rather than himself, a man disguised as a human.
But Treyni thought a little differently from him, and her reasoning was simply a little more persuasive.
"Hehe, you don't need to worry about that. We were watching the whole time too."
"...Watching? Watching what?"
"Why, of course—watching you gently send off the king of the [Orc]s and the dead soldiers. It was truly moving, you know~"
"...!!"
"There will hardly be any monsters who would oppose someone who showed mercy even to the enemy king, so please relax and accept the role of chairman~"
At Treyni's ticklish whisper, the blank expression Adelio had barely been maintaining finally cracked, and he immediately turned his head toward Rimuru.
"......Huh?"
But when Rimuru saw Adelio's startled gaze, she only kept tilting her head as if she had no idea what was going on, and thanks to that reaction, Adelio had no choice but to realize what had happened.
"[Great Sage]... just what did you do...?"
The fact that what had happened inside Rimuru's subspace had been visible outside could not be explained unless [Great Sage] had interfered.
To begin with, the only reason Adelio had been able to enter Rimuru's subspace and speak with him at all was because [Great Sage] had permitted it...
...And then [Great Sage] sent Adelio a [Thought Communication].
"[Explanation. I merely helped the individual Adelio grow closer to the others as quickly as possible.]"
"...You call this helping? You weren't trying to make things even harder for me?"
Adelio asked in a voice laced with very faint anger.
He openly showed his irritation toward [Great Sage], who had acted on its own without any explanation, but [Great Sage], still closer to a machine when it came to emotions and responses, calmly offered a rebuttal.
"[Rebuttal. Since the conversation between the individual Geludo and the individual Adelio was processed without sound, from an objective standpoint the probability of the individual Adelio suffering any disadvantage is 0%.]"
"...But because of that, I ended up as chairman—"
"[Addition. If the individual Adelio successfully handles the postwar settlement, calculations indicate this will instead be beneficial, as you will be able to jointly lead the monsters together with Master.]"
"..."
"[Furthermore, it is expected that the monsters' trust in the individual Adelio will increase, so this was judged to be well worth attempting.]"
"......"
"[In addition, if you build up a great deal of trust from now on, concerns regarding later plans will also be reduced.]"
"........."
"[Do you have any objections?]"
"............No."
With [Great Sage] cutting him off and rebutting him at every turn, Adelio lost everything he had wanted to say in an instant. He stopped the [Thought Communication] and let his head droop heavily.
"......"
If conversation had counted as part of a demon's battle, then this might have been his second defeat.
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