(Risa POV)
"Lady Risa, you have to understand Lord Rimuru's feelings. He has made his decisions-"
"Thinking about the future, I know! Still, I hate it! He gave me permission, then he took it away! Meanie Big Bro." I pouted, cutting Althea off before she could defend Rimuru.
Just because what I needed to do was necessary didn't mean that I wanted to just hold back on all of the projects that I wanted to do with Milim in Dhistav.
I'd already sent the order to my Barrow Worm in Dhistav, Rico, to begin preparing the earth in Dhistav with his earth magic when Big Bro told me to cut my support of the place completely and leave everything to the local Dark Elves instead, despite how massively understaffed they were.
Even though I knew that he'd done it specifically so that I could pull Ira, Iroh, Rico, and the 250-strong lesser Spider Battalion under Ira and Iroh's command back to aid in the preparation for the Founders Festival, it still irritated me a lot. The entire Dhistav project, forcibly put on hold… BOO!
But it'd already been done. Ira and Iroh were currently back home spinning spider silk with their brood. Spider silk wasn't as silky-smooth as hellmoth silk, but it was just as tough and far more versatile for non-clothing related matters, so the more we had, the better. Rico had taken over guard duty back home from Charles, the Evil Segmentipede.
"...Whatever. We should get to work, instead of just standing here. C'mon." A pout on my face, I transformed into my humanoid form, jumping out of Althea's arms in the same motion.
Since my Demon Lord Seed evolved, I'd chosen a 'late-teen' humanoid form rather than the slightly more developed adult form, since it responded to my thoughts better.
But my clothes remained the same, casual adventurers' garb spun from the stupidly high-class Queen Hellmoth silk borne from Elisa before she'd evolved.
I wore it pretty much everywhere. In fact, I'd worn it so much that the materials that made it up had gone through a sort of evolution along with my Harvest Fest. It was super comfy and capable of ignoring blows from the average Arch-Dragon without a scratch. Althea liked to complain that it was plain, so when I needed to look fancy, I simply threw on a silver jacket lined with green threads made from Althea's old scales. It drew attention, though, so I wasn't wearing it right now, since I didn't really need to draw recognition in Tempest. Everyone here already knew who I was.
Althea and I teleported over to the old Tamed Monsters' Initiative base.
What had once essentially been a hole in the ground that held the various 'pen-like' chambers where each monster type lived together, with the only actual beds being the ones that the flower sprites used in their dormitories had completely transformed.
The monster pens now only held the non-humanoid members of the White Force, and most of the doors had been removed to allow them to come and go freely.
And instead of being a simple hole in the ground, there were multiple buildings that my subordinates had built to house the more humanoid members of the White Force, who either wouldn't be comfortable in the rough pens, or simply required special accommodations.
Naturally, most of these buildings had their own little quirks.
The spider pit, for example, was just a giant tent with walls covered in spider silk. Inside was a pit where Ira and Iroh lived with several dozen half-spider arachne.
The hellmoth area was similar, a gigantic dome with silk walls that could be removed at will to allow the young hellmoths to roam freely if necessary.
And there were around a dozen different areas like this, created for my generals according to their own unique preferences. Currently, nearly all of them were empty, their inhabitants off working, mainly killing trash monsters in New Farminus, or sabotaging various little schemes made by New Farminus's neighboring kingdoms.
It didn't technically require my generals' raw power, but even with Pipo, the whole situation was still all hands on deck, since, as the new government trained new personnel, the tiny sabotage attempts grew in number and complexity.
For example, they'd attached small boxes containing tiny, but impressively destructive little monster pests to the bottom of a carriage belonging to a merchant headed to the capitol city.
There'd also been an incident with a dozen C-ranked monsters and a monster lure near Luka's home during a trip to inspect how the Migam Earldom was being governed by his proxy.
He'd considered the ensuing battle 'good training', though he'd temporarily lost a hand due to carelessness. Luckily, Victor had been there to deal with it.
"My Lady, at least you will finally be able to develop this place properly."
"...Yeah. That's nice."
"Perhaps we should call it by name from here on. Risa City." I wasn't sure if Althea was teasing me or not. Either way, my response was the same.
"Blech." Big Bro had only named it that to get back at me for voting for the capitol city's name of 'Rimuru City'. I now understood exactly why it'd annoyed him to no end.
I'd wanted to call it 'White City' instead, but I'd been outvoted… Even though I'd built the place and named its inhabitants.
Basically, Big Bro wanted me to rapidly and completely transform this place into a city over the course of the next month. Essentially, it'd be a 'twin' to Rimuru City. One where we'd fearlessly and indiscriminately pursue the height of knowledge in this world.
If Rimuru City would go on to become the Jura-Tempest Federation's center, then it'd become Risa City's job to support it from the shadows. I had no problem with becoming the lord of a city like that… but it was really embarrassing to have the city's name match mine.
Nope, nope, nope. That wouldn't do. I needed something… something so brilliant, so amazing that nobody ever called this place Risa City! Ever!
Yeah, that was what I'd do! And everyone would pitch in.
I smiled. "That means you're gonna have to help, too, Izzy."
"..." He appeared in my mind for a moment, gave a noncommittal shrug-like emotion, then vanished back into his endless combat simulations with Sol. I think he was using Milim as an opponent now, because his simulations were actively affecting the part of my soul in which Izzy lurked nowadays, and Sol was in the middle of some sort of long, abnormal evolution that I didn't fully understand, inside Big Bro's stomach.
"I thought you wanted to finish this as quickly as possible, Lady Risa?"
"Yeah, I'm coming, Althea." I replied to my maid, trailing after her, a new bounce in my step as I imagined just what I was going to build.