TEMPEST'S GRAND OPENING! | That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime - Episode 20 | Season 3
Added 2025-04-10 21:51:12 +0000 UTCIt's the first day of the festival and things are getting so freaking awesome in Tempest!
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Comment, Part 2: G. The money problem What is happening? The minor merchants who were brought in to provide retail for the festival by the large wholesale merchants were refusing to take any payment from Tempest except with Dwarven gold coins. What they expected: Mjollmile had carefully chosen the large-scale merchants, whom he had known for years. He had chosen them partially as insurance, thinking they would be willing to work with him to avoid the payment problems he foresaw could arise, so that he could provide payment by other means. But those working under the merchants refused to accept that plan, which even put Mjollmile's closest merchant friends in a bind. The reason that he chose a small group to work with was to have fewer trades, so he could gradually break down the stellars in Tempest’s vault. Why they didn’t see it coming? The most important omissions in the anime were about the expected methods of payment. In the West, which was under the control of the Council of the West, which enacted these rules of trade, payments are to be made in Dwarven gold coins, the most trusted currency. There really weren't any other good currencies. However, these rules really only applied to the Western Nations. In the contracts that were formed with the merchants prior to coming to the festival, it was stipulated that other forms of payment would be valid. That includes ancient gold or coins, barter, and IOU’s. Mjollmile had expected that the payments didn’t have to adhere strictly to these standards, although they had expected some to insist upon it. But they thought there would be enough to cover the situation. But the small merchants were acting as a bloc, which they didn’t recognize at first so he had paid some of them already. Why is this happening? What is their goal? Who did this? The stated reason by these merchants is that they didn’t trust Tempest, which meant they didn’t trust monsters. Tempest was a newcomer and they were unknown as a trading partner. The subtext was that they wanted to make Tempest look bad, and demonstrate they would behave badly under pressure with regard to international rules, despite the fact that technically those rules didn’t apply to them. It also so happened that these merchants were all affiliated with the Council of the West, so they had a basis for saying they expected to be treated according to the standards set by the Council. It was also that someone “high up” on the council had to be involved. Only such a person could have connections to merchants throughout the West and could get them planted into the festival supplies. To do that, that person must be willing to endure losses, which takes guts, which means it has to be worth the risk–more than ruining their reputation. Mjollmile was well-versed in the underground economy, so if he said it was someone they couldn't trace, someone “high up”, it was seriously bad news. This means that, at the root, this is happening because the Council thinks Tempest's economic alliance puts them in jeopardy. This is the impetus for Shion to speak up, then Diablo to make his statement. Shion's analysis is amazing, but Diablo's analysis is particularly noteworthy for its analysis of human nature. Diablo and all demons are students of human nature. Diablo even has a Skill called Tempter. There is an aspect of why Diablo serves Rimuru in this statement, but it's a bit tangential. Countermeasures that won’t work and why. Pay with other means: that includes forms of payment customarily used such as ancient gold coins, barter, and IOU’s. Interest was a concept still in its infancy. The merchants refused to accept them, despite it being written into their contracts. Rimuru thought about making counterfeit coins, but Raphael objected, saying Dwarven coins were inscribed with a magical serial number. He had gold bars imported from the Animal Kingdom, which he thought he could make the coins from. These gold bars are also what Rimuru thought about overpaying with, that Mjollmile objected to because it would show weakness to merchants in the future. They would remember that Tempest, when presented with an impossible situation, would try to force a solution, even if it meant taking losses, so they wouldn't see them as equals, and make unfair offers. if these retail merchants were part of the Free Guild, Tempest could get them involved. The Free Guild received favorable treatment in customs-related matters, and Tempest had a fairly good rep with them. (Despite Yuuki being its leader, Yuuki was being aboveboard in his public dealings with Tempest, at least. And maybe he isn’t micromanaging the Guild.) Force the issue. However, the effect would be facing backlash from the Council. If they were already members, things might've been different. If Tempest were thinking of joining the Council, it would work against them. What is Tempest’s goal? What is the current plan? Rimuru's goals: show them they'd stick by the Council’s rules. If they couldn't, they’d deal with it then. It wasn't war or something life-threatening. So it wasn't too urgent. [Interesting POV.🤔😅] Mjollmile had gotten his friends to get the retail merchants to wait until after the festival. And they are helping him raise money atm. Those merchants are able to exchange ancient coins for Dwarven coins, at something of a loss to Tempest. Getting it there would be tough; Rimuru's staff could help it along with Spatial Motion, but it seemed ineffective. Besides, maybe the plotters are trying to get Rimuru’s top staff out of town. Rimuru thought that it was unlikely they'd get enough Dwarven coins in time. Luckily the visitors have been spending money generously. Maybe they could go on the offensive if they were lucky. Right now there was no clear solution. They would remain defiant. They couldn't do anything crazy, but if they had to they’d force their rules on them. It's better to respect everyone's regulations, but this is Tempest. The merchants did need to be paid, no matter what, and they’d do it fairly. It might not be in the form they want, but the merchants would still be compensated. So Rimuru just told Mjollmile to do what he could, and not overthink it. By the time the Council could react, by then they’d have more information, including the enemy, or the potential enemy, who was behind it. Souei had said they can't ignore this, and asked if he should investigate these tradesmen's past employers. Rimuru replied, yes, but it would have to wait until after the festival. They could handle the problem first, then find out who was behind it. [I suppose not to tip anyone off that they're onto them.] Procrastinating created some annoying issues for himself, Rimuru thought, but seeing Mjollmile worrying and blaming himself made Rimuru suggest they all go out to relax. H. Other events at that meeting, and the after-party. At the same meeting, Diablo updated Rimuru on the first day of the tournament. The 6 additional seeds had been chosen, whom he called “not a concern” if it were he were in tournament. About the Hero, Diablo said, “‘…heh-heh-heh… Yes, he certainly has some fascinating tools to work with….I think any further briefing on the day’s events would spoil the fun for you tomorrow.’” Remember I told you about the set up in the Dungeon, and about Floor 95, where the Beast Kingdom refugees are currently living with the treants and the dryads and elves. Anyhow, Rimuru has finally achieved his DREAM! There is a members-only, elf-run club there. Only the truly elite could enter. That night Rimuru decided to “inspect” the club. He had decided to open it to the foreign dignitaries for advertising purposes. The place was jumping, people talking about the music and the potions. Gazel and Vesta were already there, and Rimuru had to hang out with them for a while. And all that led to him becoming really drunk. And everybody else was getting drunk too. But the most important things that happened were that a drunken Gazel agreed to help with the gold coins problem, and then Archduke Erald came along and agreed to consider their predicament. Next morning, Rimuru admitted he’d had too much to drink. He could turn down his Cancel Poison thanks to Luminus but he needed to distract Raphael to do it. But now he had a headache. Here's Raphael: “…Unfortunately, your Cancel Pain ability has also been weakened. The pain is likely to continue for the time being.” “I was not-so-graciously ignored, and so I had to fight that headache for a while afterward.” Rimuru apologized and begged. “…… Raphael’s exasperation was loud and clear—but after a little while, the pain went away.”
myst0dreamer
2025-04-15 11:10:58 +0000 UTCThere's so much in this episode that I am going to break it into different comments. The first five (A-F) listed are in this comment, the others will come later. A. Hinata and the kids. Tiss-sensei. B, C. Luminus, the Overcomers, the Secrets, the Warning. D. The performances, Takt. Music, Shion and Shuna. E. The Technology Presentation F. Dinner conversation The money problem Some things from the previous episode, prior to tournament, also some things from after the meeting. General comments, opinions. There were a lot of shockers for Rimuru, people revealing surprising sides to themselves. A. Hinata and the kids. Rimuru had already built the church that he had promised back in Episode 12, and Luminus was staying there. (How ironic, a vampire staying in a church!) Hinata’s dress was one she had bought the day before in Tempest. It's made of hellmoth silk which was limited in supply, and had to be handmade as well as tailored to size. It has Cancel Temperature and protects as well as leather armor. The fact that she bought it and had it altered in one day means she had no trouble spending wild amounts of money. Rimuru noted she must be really rich, and she bought a lot of other things too. She also loves junk food. She had spent part of the prior day just planning what booths she was going to hit. Tiss-sensei was originally non-canon. They came up with an ingenious way to remove her from child care duties to veer back to the original plot where Hinata was the one chaperoning them. You might think it’s dangerous to bring the kids to Tempest. Now that these children are no longer useless and doomed, they might regain value in someone's eyes. Maybe that makes them safer in Tempest. Hinata, if nothing else, is a good protector of the children. A thing they really underemphasized in the anime, is the amount of security in Tempest. Souei had just been rewarded for his spying abilities and team (see a separate comment about the meeting the night before the opening speech, that was omitted from the anime), and he was running surveillance. He now supervised several hundred people, but Rigur was in charge of security as well. B. The Meeting With Luminus: All the servants in the room (besides Arnaud and Bacchus) were vampires, but they had hidden their auras and were indistinguishable from humans. Luminus was wearing a maid uniform because she was supposed to be incognito. It may be a mistranslation when she said she was trying to create music while preserving their traditional music but recently she was in a kind of rut. It really is "they" not "she". She enjoys music, but she isn't a composer. The humans in Lubelius were not that cultured (artistically or technologically), but the vampires (underground) were fairly advanced. They were hiding because they were trying to protect themselves from Veldora and the angels. According to Luminus, she was the most powerful political ruler among the Demon Lords. Vampires were essentially immortal, living longer than elves. The upper level vampires are the most powerful among the noble classes, can go out in the sun with no problem, and don't need to consume human blood to survive. These are known as Overcomers, and there were very few of them. The servants at the festival were all Overcomers. An Overcomer has no weak points, so has a lot of free time. Rimuru realized that the vampires in the room were all serving Rimuru voluntarily as a hobby. They are a bit bored. In contrast to demons, whose social hierarchy is very regimented, the vampires serve Luminus because they have great respect for her. It is from this group that the research-hobbyists will come. They made things for fun trying to gain Luminus' attention. She said it was a bit irritating since they were fixated on their own ideas, even though she had ordered them to develop something useful. They had made no progress whatsoever. She wished Rimuru could give them some education. Rimuru was hesitant, wanting to meet them first. He worried that a bunch of them used to living life in the ruling class might cause some problems. C. The Secrets of Faith and Grace The Secrets of Faith and Grace (aka Secret Skills of Faith and Favor), are the means by which those who worship Luminus can use Holy Magic. In order words, how to be a god. It didn't sound like much in the episode, but it's a big deal. These Skills were the principles behind holy magic. It involves his followers using Rimuru's name as a vessel, and thus putting their faith in him in order to cast spells, that is, Holy Magic. It would borrow a bit of Rimuru's power. He's not going to let everyone in on this, though. It's supposed to be based on the top person being able to use Holy Magic. Again, I don't understand why people like Luminus can use Holy Magic themselves. There will be some more explanation later in Slime. Luminus offered to exchange the Secrets of Faith and Grace for a reason. She said it's best to use a bargaining chip while it's still valuable. In this case, now was the best time. Luminus said Rimuru would have probably figured it out after not too long. I think she means years. Raphael, in accepting these Skills, you might have noticed, sounded a bit sullen about it. It's because Raphael had wanted to work it out herself. She was already on track with sacrificing Beelzebub to analyze Meltslash. She has already figured out how to defend against spiritual particles (aka spiritrons), the basis for holy magic (and also the soul, as we just learned). Rimuru already shares power with his followers to some extent through his naming them, and through Uriel, Lord of Vows. There is some Skill-sharing, and mostly Rimuru is the beneficiary of the power flow through magicules. But he doesn't always hold onto it, so it goes back to the original holders of that power. It's an organic and unconscious process most of the time. Supply and demand. But holy magic works a different way. Each use of this power starts with the spell-caster, I don't think there is conscious intervention each time by the "god". Rimuru thought maybe Luminus teaching him the Secrets around all these people was risky but Raphael reported that Luminus has isolated their location using Spatial Severance. Rimuru was impressed that Luminus so naturally used Skills. (Another time they left out Skill usage in the anime.) Rimuru worried that he had been lucky that it didn't hurt him this time, but negotiation with Luminus was dangerous and he needed to be cautious in future. Who are those that Luminus is warning about? I am not sure it’s the obvious suspects. Rimuru does have detection abilities, and Raphael is monitoring the environment with Universal Detect. He has been noticing some unimportant things described in the LN, but this is the first overt acknowledgement since Episode 12 (in the LN too, it's not just something they omitted from the anime), that he is paying attention to his suspicions. What does Luminus mean by not sullying the name of the Octagram? It's also the first indication since Walpurgis of any solidarity among the Demon Lords, as Demon Lords. Milim's antics aren't exactly the same. This is how they put it in the novel, which I am including so you get the nuances. Luminus then brought up the topic of “some disagreeable individuals among the dignitaries you invited.” “She acted casually about this, her tone unchanged. I wondered what she meant for a moment—but it had to be her way of warning me about something. “I guess it wasn’t my imagination after all. “‘Ah yes, that pair?’ “‘Mm. If you don’t shirk your duty and keep your wits about you with them, then very well. But I do hope you will make efforts not to denigrate the good name of the Octagram.’” D. Music: The opera house had been planned back when Rimuru was trying to come up with tourist attractions with Mjollmile, at the same time they came up with the colosseum. At the concert hall. Rimuru thought the world’s level of culture was pretty low, acknowledging that some people might think the same thing about him. There was an arts and music scene, but it was only for nobles, and usually private. But culture, to flourish, needs to be supported by society as a whole, otherwise such a narrow world might never discover a genius. It might be idealistic (again), but he wanted to find such geniuses, so he needed to spread culture and the leisure time necessary to support it. Takt, aka Baton, is a halfling who couldn't find work he could do: not strong, no good at math or farming or fighting, but he sang songs that motivated his fellow workers. Rimuru assigned him to the military band, and named him. Turned out to be his calling. Takt is sort of how you pronounce takuto, which means conduct. Most of the new characters in Season 3 are important in the future. Even Masayuki's crew shouldn't be dismissed. It also turns out a lot of monsters were good at music. There had been a few instruments that already were being used by monsters, and there were other instruments in the world. They had found many instruments in Clayman's castle, including a piano. Raphael had collected in one text what Rimuru had seen in music theory texts in his own world, plus info in the library (when he first visited Engrassia) about instruments in this world. Although he himself didn't really understand everything in it, the monsters used the text to learn about music and how to read music. Raphael again reproduced all the music that Rimuru liked in the form of sheet music. It ranged from famous classical music to anime music. Rimuru was bemused at how some of this music had been turned into orchestral music. Rimuru is hoping it won't be long before people are composing new works of music. Rimuru thought that harmony was creating connections, which is the same thing Shuna said about cuisine. I guess the studio had neither the time nor the rights to any of that music, because it would have been funny if they could have used music familiar to anime watchers, just like the Veldora fight at Walpurgis was. Shuna and Shion actually meshed well. Shuna always liked to sing, and Shion had always had a good sense of rhythm. The nature of the Shuna and Shion performance: As they expressed it in the LN, it started feeling like a duet, but it suddenly seemed more like a duel. Shion expressed sheer force in her melody, while Shuna's piano gently enveloped it. Intensity and softness. Profoundly expressive. This could only be accomplished through innate discipline. Shuna's roots as an Oracle and Shion's as her protector expressed an almost religious impact. No, Shion hadn’t been planning on cooking something as her contribution to the festival! E. The Technology Presentation As for the technology presentation, one of the things that amazed everyone was the projector, which was still in the experimental stage. It used light-magic magic inscriptions to project color images on the screen. This remote-viewing capability was another one of the things they said would give a nation who possessed it a military advantage. Probably something else he shouldn't have "broadcast" to the world. Gazel, as a co-sponsor of Tempest's research, was one of the more peeved individuals. They got most of the main points of the potion and hipokute herb presentation as in the novels, except they didn't make it very obvious that there was a microscope involved. Vesta had thought that revealing this information would be OK for reasons I list below, and Rimuru also believes on some level that the free exchange of ideas would advance the whole world. But don't forget, there are angels somewhere out there that Rimuru is being a little dismissive of. (And they might not be the only potentially hostile powers.) Most cities in this world placed technological development underground to protect against attracting their attention. The science presentation took place in the new museum. Some people recognized Vesta as a former Dwargon minister, and were surprised he was there. Just to clarify the main points of the presentation: 1. Something needs a soul before it can have will (this might be equivalent to consciousness), that is the prerequisite for sentience. (This distinction is important in Slime.) 2. First recognized as working on plants, then via experiment found it works on swords, and even on other arms and armor. The weapon must be made of magisteel. 3. You need to use the strongest (i.e., a full) potion to have these effects on weak consciousnesses. 4. Therefore, magicules are where consciousness is housed. Rimuru’s takeaways from the presentation: 1. It spread word about Tempest's great discoveries while keeping key parts a secret. 2. No one could copy their technology with what was revealed. 3. Others could experiment, but they couldn't extend it to mass production. 4. More researchers would come to their magicule-rich land, which would provide a good environment for study. 5. His main goal– that of making the movers and shakers interested in Tempest– is a success. F. Rimuru, Hinata, and Yuuki happened to dine together. The main point here was a discussion of the effect that magicules had on their bodies when they transferred worlds. “ “When you jump between worlds, you take in a vast amount of energy. Sometimes these manifest as skills, and sometimes it results in nothing—like with you, Yuuki. But you’re right—you’re still affected by them.’” (Hinata) We still don’t know what this effect might be (obviously he isn’t aging but maybe there’s more). We don’t know much about Yuuki at all yet, really.
myst0dreamer
2025-04-12 13:09:51 +0000 UTC
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