AN: Volume 7 is meant to be a slower-paced one with a bit more world-building so hang in there before things pick up pace again.

Volume 7 - Hegemony.

Chapter 1

The time manipulation laboratory was the most secure part of the research department, only a select few were allowed within the spherical room, and the number of people who knew about it outside of the elite chosen could be counted on one hand. In the center of this room was the temporal manipulator, a device created by a collaborative effort of Pandora, Veldora, and Ramiris based on data provided by both Chloe's time travel skill and Momonga's time stop skill, alongside much of Nazarick's equipment and Ramiris' past experiences with the time spirits.

The trio had only eight assistants in total, a minimal amount considering other research departments could have hundreds of assistants, if not more, at all times. Two highly magical kijin, an ambitious dragonewt, and five studious vampires, the latter having already indulged in a similar type of research while still under Luminous' rule and were thus allowed in. Since the long-lived race had shown no interest in leaving Nazarick and were content with staying on a floor created for them, they could be permitted to join the research teams, after pledging a few oaths of secrecy that they were more than happy to comply with, that is. Any of these individuals could become top-tier researchers in other sub-departments, but here they were grunts, happy grunts but grunts nonetheless.

The vampires, as it turned out, had ingrained scientific research in their very culture thanks to Luminous' intense efforts to create magitech to fight against Veldora, with the vast majority taking part in this endeavor in some form. Hence their mighty barrier-battery system could withstand even the attacks of the heavens for centuries without fail. Most of them just focused more on … tame magitech, for quality of life, a useful thing to pass down to the lower departments.

Veldora, as the project lead, put on the protective goggles and announced, "Prepare for the particle transportation test seven hundred forty-five."

Ramiris, receiving the order, also adjusted her goggles and performed the command input on the floating UI panel. The goggles, that all research personnel wore, served only decorative purposes for spiritual beings like Veldora and Ramiris. However, it was agreed upon that they looked cool while wearing them and thus the use of the equipment was completely justified. Considering how important intent was to the more… vague parts of this world's laws, it could make the difference between a breakthrough and a failure.

It came as no surprise that the three lead researchers shared a lot of common beliefs and even learned from each other in both presentation and style. Ramiris even made herself a yellow dress suit with a coat and hat, but thus far hadn't gathered enough bravery to wear it in public, as her two peers sported such outfits with natural charisma that she doubted she could compare. She was content with cookies and pixies.

"Test ready, teleporting particles into the main chamber of the temporal manipulator," Ramiris stated as she operated the device, carefully flicking lever after lever in quick succession.

Pandora, meanwhile, observed the test with the help of Omniscience borrowed from his father, as it was the main skill he kept active as his current ultimate skill. The technology alone wasn't enough as it could only do limited operations in a controlled manner, but that wasn't the point. The real breakthrough would come when he gained insight into how time operated on a fundamental level to replicate it elsewhere, and thus far, the skill had given only vague data as it operated within the limits of the world's system, which restricted any attempts at disturbing the timelines. The skill Chloe possessed was a rare anomaly, akin to a programming error which, according to the established parameters known to them, shouldn't exist. The only permissible time tampering skills came in the form of a time stop or world suspension, and even those were locked behind incredibly high power levels and comprehension of world laws.

Despite the lack of progress, Pandora was determined to crack the puzzle and find a way to transfer not only data but material between timelines, which would give them effectively infinite resources to work with. Veldora was also utilizing his skill, Faust, Lord of Investigation to its maximum capabilities, pushing everything even remotely possible in their favor and analyzing every particle within. Yet the mighty dragon's progress was just as slow as his, showing just how difficult time was to analyze.

"Proceed," Veldora ordered while focusing all of his attention on the particle, turning his head.

Ramiris instantly pressed a slew of buttons from her panel. The machine buzzed, with energies swirling around its spherical core in extremely high quantities.

"Particles transported five plank spaces outside the timeline. No data," Ramiris commented. Like every other test thus far, the result was a particle lost outside the timeline, removed from this plane of existence with no material way to retrieve it.

"I see it. Kinda. Pandora?" Veldora turned to the doppelganger.

"I see it as well, Herr Veldora. Perform reverse maneuver, seventeen planks up." Pandora ordered, hoping for the best.

"Performing reverse maneuver… a particle detected in the chamber…" Ramiris reported the readings, practically shrieking in the latter half.

"We did it!" Veldora roared, swinging his arms in the air and losing the clipboard he was holding, flinging it across the room.

"It's not the same particle. We got a temporal duplicate." Pandora crushed his celebratory mood in an instant.

"We still got something." The dragon grumbled in response, sighing.

"That means we have at least something to report, right? Lord Momonga expects results." Ramiris took off the goggles and disabled the temporal manipulator for the next set of procedures, motioning for the assistants to begin the clean-up and safety procedures.

"Lord Momonga expects concrete results. If you somehow managed to transport Rimuru one particle at a time, it would take ten to the power of twenty-four years to reassemble him in Nazarick at the rate you're going." Nazarick appeared beside Veldora in her semi-translucent form.

"We are still making progress!" Veldora sharply turned his head to glare at the pesky skill that used every opportunity to rat him out to his younger brother, the other two busying themself as they knew what was coming.

He had no idea why Manas Nazarick was so hostile towards him specifically, but the skill was getting on his nerves constantly in subtle ways, from messing with his wardrobe to intervening with unnecessary paperwork, and worst of all, there was nothing he could do to stop it, save for complaining to Momonga, which his pride prevented him from doing.

"Indeed. I do require the request for energy allocation. Each of these tests spends more in half a minute than the entire capital city in an hour." Nazarick slowly drifted away from Veldora towards her master's son as she hummed a particular melody. One of the ways to appear more humanlike was to indulge in seemingly unnecessary actions for a being of her caliber, and she enjoyed humming or whistling melodies, particularly those she knew the dragon found irritating.

"Can you stop that?" Veldora grumbled, his entire body twitching in annoyance.

"Stop what?" Nazarick asked innocently, being well aware of why the dragon was so upset.

"That is the freaking Terminator two theme! You are doing this on purpose." The dragon roared.

"Oh, I'm sorry, meatbags - I mean, organic life forms - enjoy this melody, and I found it very endearing as well." Nazarick turned around and explained with an innocent smile on her face, eyes glittering with sadism.

"Just prepare the energy for ten tests by tomorrow and send Momonga the up-to-date data," Veldora uttered in defeat. The skill was a polar opposite to her master and obviously reveled in tormenting him by reminding him of all of his past blunders. He much preferred Pero.

"I will add my own observations to the report, fraulein Nazarick." Pandora saluted and, picking up on Nazarick's demeanor, started to whistle an uplifting German march from his favorite collection of songs.

"Of course. Your father will be thrilled to get your insight." She nodded, heaping praise upon the doppelganger.

All the information about the time-related research was instantly compiled and, with as little energy as possible wasted in materialization, made into a physical report on her master's office table. She also made a copy for Albedo, as Momonga's head consort was the one dealing with most of the mundane decisions that ran the tomb.

Nazarick was performing hundreds of actions simultaneously, barely straining her mental capabilities as she annoyed the True Dragon. The biggest bottleneck to slowing her down was the skill's energy reserves, as although they were expanding, they still needed to be carefully spent on the most important projects, like naming the hundreds of millions of still unnamed Tempest's citizens.

The only side project not related to official business was the construction of her main physical body made out of caloric stone. She also prepared hundreds of lesser units she would control should the tomb be under an attack but they were only pale imitations. Soon enough, the entire tomb would be under her protection to work better for her master.

She materialized in the construction chamber, observing the body critically as magic flowed into it. At this point, the inorganic materials had most of its synthetic muscles weaved and attached to the skeleton frame. Soon, she would walk the world physically and stand with pride as the great tomb's most formidable defense, right after its leader and her master's void pet. Nothing else would stand in her way.

<X>

Aura resisted the urge to groan as she glanced away from Milim and Mare sitting side by side, giggling as they read a book together.

Lately, the whole class had become a breeding ground for budding relationships. Some of them were understandable as her peers were the children of the nation's elite and many were already engaged due to their families wanting to ally for either political or financial gain, and thus proactively ensuring that their predetermined marriage partner was enjoying time with them was a decent goal to have in mind. In some sense, Aura understood that she and the others had reached the age when romantic relationships would begin to bloom and that not much could be done about it.

Even she had received over two hundred marriage offers from children of various influential figures, all of which she happily turned down with her mother's encouragement, politely of course. The Nazarick librarian was more than happy to store the papers under the "futile political engagements" section for future historical reference.

Truth be told, she didn't have much interest in pursuing a relationship and enjoyed her freedom and growing trust of her mother who, upon seeing how responsible Aura was, had finally stopped her overbearing ways. Perhaps it was Buku's mysterious mentor who had talked sense into her, perhaps it was the growing insistence from Lord Momonga of letting her take upon tasks that finally drove the point home that she was a capable and independent person. She was a guardian or now high executor first and foremost, and everything else was secondary.

"Where is Alice and Kenya? The next lesson is about to start." Chloe, sitting to her right, wondered out loud.

The time-traveling girl had become a friend and ally of sorts when it came to dealing with the growing attention from the horde of boys. The ancient time traveler, parading as a nerdy teenage girl, also avoided any sort of romantic relationship with boys of her supposed age for rather obvious reasons. And worst of all, she had to hide the truth from most of her friends. Only Aura, Mare, and Milim knew who she truly was.

"They snuck off again," Aura replied, disinterested in the whole ordeal.

"I don't get why they're trying to hide it. Everyone knows already." Chloe glanced at the door as Alice sneaked back in first.

"Who knows? It's not my problem anyways." Aura shrugged. She had enough to deal with on her own to worry about the actions of her human friends. If she cared, she could ask her mother or uncle Pero to explain why the pair was so sneaky about their relationship and even played up their bickering at times.

Kenya returned to class a moment later and sat a distance away from Alice, barely making it on time as Princess Shuna arrived a few seconds later, carrying a thick stack of books.

Once the door closed behind her on its own, the books flew out of her hands and landed on each table, opening up on page twelve.

"Good day, class. I got you new books. Please treat them with care so we can hand them over to younger students once we have learned everything we need." She spoke softly with a hint of excitement in her voice.

As an ultimate skill user, Aura found little use in the rather simplistic magic Lord Momonga's adoptive daughter taught besides party tricks. Still, she kept quiet for the sake of other students who lacked such power. Same as with her brother, using magic came to him naturally, and learning the spells took mere minutes, making them prodigies when it came to blasting through the curriculum.

She glanced over at Mare, who was already skimming through the book and memorizing the spells, likely to help Milim with doing tasks correctly around the house. When it came to energy manipulation, Milim was on another level compared to her and Mare, but at the same time often failed to take into account that others weren't as skilled and thus needed to know how weaker beings did things.

"Are we dueling today?" Milim asked, raising her hand.

"No. Don't pout, sister. Takezara has new tricks to teach later. Today we will learn how to send a message with the help of a spell, and those of you who have the innate ability to do so still have to learn the spell. There are ways to block innate abilities and many would use it against the monster races."

{ It's not that different. } She effortlessly cast a message spell addressed to Shuna.

{ I know you can do it, Aura. You can help others. } Shuna replied in the same manner.

'School is such a waste of time. I could help make ranger patrol routes.' She sighed.

At her mother's insistence, she still needed to attend the school for the social aspect of it to learn how to better interact with people, as silly as it sounded. The whole class was an exercise in absurdity. Not even counting her, Mare, and Shuna, they also had one of the High Lords attending the class, there for similar reasons.

Milim did it solely to spend more time with Mare, and Lord Momonga allowed it, increasingly indulging in spoiling his adoptive daughter just like the other Supreme Ones did. Milim, to her credit, rarely abused this fact and tried to be responsible, assisting where she could.

Then again, now that Tempest finally had no active conflict with a third party, the whole nation could take a breather and concentrate on developing the Hegemony into a proper modern nation and not worry about anyone trying to kill them. The only unresolved issue, Leon, was allowed to be for now as securing the half-a-continent-spanning nation took precedence. He could be dealt with later.

Editing by aidan_lo.

Proofreading by aidan_lo, fvvck, Malguis, mfkz rocker, Sluethen, Stac, clagan, Working_Stiff CakeEight, and IAMTHEPLOKOKIOPO

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