(Rimuru POV)
Though I'd originally intended to host the debriefing regarding the whole 'War' situation and everything that was going to happen moving forward within a day or two of returning from Walpurgis, assembling my entire cabinet proved nearly impossible for the next two weeks.
While Shuna, Gobta, and Benimaru reappeared in Tempest within two days of the council, Gabil and Geld ended up forced to deal with the war prisoners and the logistics for dealing with the Eurazanian refugees.
Plus, there was Risa's White Force.
Currently, Risa's subordinate, Victor, a handsome young vampire-like humanoid evolved from a Giant Bat, had been placed in charge of the child rulers at New Farminus, but it was a lot of work that required Althea to Spatial Motion over constantly to check in, not to mention the ongoing occupation, led by Sadie, Pipo, and Bade, an evolved, humanoid Blade Bearkin, with aid from many of Risa's other generals, like the strict former Gorgon, Jak, and the soft-spoken former Armorsaurus, Shael. Between all of that, the peacekeeping efforts inside New Farminus occupied several hundred members of the White Force at all times, and a nontrivial portion of Althea's time.
The rest of which was spent on directing the former Knight Spider, Iroh, and the former Black Spider, Ira, as they dealt with the situation in Dhistav.
When you add that into the mix, along with maintaining the basic standby force in their base at the old Tamed Monsters Initiative, even a large portion of the less-humanoid, non-speaking members of the White Force had been deployed, including the wind-aspected evolved Giant Hawk, Kion, and the size-changing evolved Barrow Worm, Rico.
Apparently, Risa had even considered deploying Ralph, the evolved Gigant Terrachicken, to Dhistav.
Luckily, thanks to Adalmann, that had proved unnecessary.
But still, between all of that, Althea generally only had a few minutes spread throughout the day to Spatial Motion back to Tempest to personally take care of Risa. She hated it.
And with the way Soei had been massively overworking himself gathering information in the Western Nations for Risa, that was nearly half of my cabinet simply gone for nearly two weeks, before things started to settle down.
At least that gave us time to consider things more deeply before any decisions were formally made. For Risa and I especially, those two weeks were not spent in vain. It gave us time to plan, work, and consider.
Ramiris ended up building a small, village-sized temporary labyrinth next to the old Tamed Monsters Initiative base. Naturally, the very next day, a literal drove of Dryads appeared at her door, leading to the relocation of the entire Treant village into Ramiris's labyrinth, along with Zeigon, Apito, and the little group of named insectoids that I'd accidentally created inside the Treant village somewhere along the way, to gather Apito's honey for me.
We were currently talking about turning the village into a research base of sorts, staffed by the dryads and treants once Risa found time to give them their own bodies. Since the entrance was so near to the White Force's headquarters, and the Insectoids lived inside the village, that particular spot was technically the most well-defended place in Tempest, or close-to. A perfect spot for a secret research base… And I'd be able to dump the entire thing onto Risa's back, so that I didn't have to deal with the administrative side of things over in that crazy place.
I'd have to address all of that at the upcoming cabinet meeting, too.
Currently, though, any developments in that particular area were stalled due to the temporary project overload.
After all, I'd placed Geld in charge of training the amalgamated work force in Eurazania, a workforce including not only the prisoners from Clayman's old army, but also every single beastman volunteer Carillon could spare, and even small teams of helpers pulled from the Harpy Kingdom of Fulbrosia and the Dragon Faithful.
Meanwhile, the youngest Dwarf brother, Myrd, a quiet man who specialized in construction, was currently in New Farminus teaching the White Force stationed there, along with around two thousand newly recruited humans. They were in the process of building not only the royal palace, but also three separate institutions. One specifically centered around combat training, specifically with a focus on magical combat and elementalism, another specifically centered around things like the natural sciences, such as environmental and agricultural sciences, maybe plant and animal anatomy and biology, too. Things that'd be useful specifically for farmers and the like. Then, the third and final school would be an art school. This world's first. The child rulers of New Farminus were actually the ones to specifically push for the third school to be built, otherwise Risa and I would've simply tossed the idea aside due to manpower constraints.
And then, finally, Tempest's main construction force, the High Orcs, were busy with roadwork and expanding the city of Rimuru itself to adjust to our rapidly booming population.
As things stood, we were rapidly becoming the effective center of world affairs, or at least the western part of the world.
The way things were going, in ten years or so, the world would be completely different.
New Farminus would become not only the breadbasket of the West, but also the effective center of the planet, known for being a proving ground for farmers and artists, as well as the birthplace of countless Champions.
Then, there would be Dwargon. I'd already spoken to King Gazel about having him build his own institute there, centered specifically around the Magi-physical sciences. I wanted Dwargon to become the birthplace of the planet's greatest physicists and engineers. Honestly, it already was so, technically, but the nature of their work made it so that Dwargon absolutely refused to teach that sort of thing to anyone who wasn't from Dwargon.
In fact, the vast majority of the planet had that exact mindset. Information was almost always withheld, not shared.
Until Tempest came along. Now, Dwargon and Thalion, two entirely opposing mindsets when it came to research and development, were already readying the largest technological exchange this world had ever seen, with Tempest as a focal point. With Risa in charge of all of that, this world was about to undergo an incredible technological revolution, the likes of which had never been seen before on this entire planet.
The plan that I'd proposed to Gazel was to have Dwargon teach all of the basics to anyone and everyone willing to learn, in a classroom setting, and withholding the advanced concepts.
He was… hesitantly considering it. From a completely logical perspective, it made sense, even had interesting and powerful benefits for Dwargon as a country, but he hadn't quite opened up to the idea of granting that kind of technical knowledge to the general population yet.
We'd have to prove to him why it made sense, with our own developments here in Tempest. I expected that, by the end of the next year or so, he'd completely come around to the idea.
Then, another new world power would be Blummund. Based on the plans, it would become the world's center of mercantile trade. I'd heard Fuze offhandedly mention the fact that the country's king was already considering doing a bit of expansion, even opening their own academy, taking inspiration from New Farminus, to adjust to their new place in Tempest's economic bloc, as the logistical center of the West's new supply chain.
And finally, Tempest's place in the new world. I was planning on opening our own public academy centered toward training doctors and lawyers, but we'd also have Ramiris's labyrinth city, which would become the secret center of technological development of the entire world, a place where the best of the best were taught anything and everything they could ever hope to know, a place where trusted geniuses from all four corners of the world could grow and work together in harmony for the betterment of everyone.
A bit idealistic, but also something uniquely possible, only in Tempest.
A land of ideals made reality. I couldn't wait for that day to come.