Gabiru

Gabiru is introduced as the heir of the lizardman nation that rules the wetlands of Jura Forest.

After a failed uprising related to the Orc Lord incident, he is disowned and exiled, eventually joining Rimuru Tempest and the monster nation of Tempest.

He is known for his overconfidence, flashy speeches, and catchphrase-like self-praise, but is fundamentally loyal, compassionate, and responsible toward his subordinates.

Over the course of the story he grows into a powerful commander and awakens as a Water Spirit Dragon with the title "Heavenly Dragon King."

Name: Gabiru

Gender: Male

Race (initial): Lizardman

Race (after naming): Dragonewt

Race (after awakening): True Dragonewt (mid-ranked holy–demonic spirit, Water Spirit Dragon)

Affiliation: Monster Nation Tempest (after exile)

Position:

Commander of the Flying Dragon Squad (air corps of lizardmen)

General of Tempest’s Third Legion (Blue Numbers and wyvern airstrike force)

Blessing: Rimuru’s Blessing

Title: "Heavenly Dragon King" (Draglord)

Ultimate Gift: Lord of Mood (Mood Maker)

Energy Points (EP): 1,263,824 (+ 1,000,000 from the Vortex Spear)

Weapon: Vortex Spear (water-attribute spear inherited from his father)

Voice Actor (Japanese): Jun Fukushima

Gabiru’s abilities evolve dramatically along with his race and status.

Pre-awakening abilities

After being named by Rimuru Tempest and evolving into a Dragonewt, Gabiru acquires powerful skills:

Unique Skill: "Show-Off" (Midasmono)

Allows him to alter fate once per day, effectively rewriting the outcome of an event.

The skill’s flavor reflects his "getting carried away" nature, but mechanically it is extremely powerful.

Intrinsic Skill: "Dragon Warriorization" (Dragon Body)

Greatly enhances his offensive and defensive power.

Grants instant regeneration of injuries, improving his endurance in battle.

He also gains wings and horns like other Dragonewts, though he often keeps his wings hidden using his transformation skills.

Post-awakening abilities

In volume 14 of the novels, Gabiru receives a portion of Rimuru’s soul and awakens to a True Dragonewt, Water Spirit Dragon.

His existing skills are strengthened into high-level abilities:

Upgraded Intrinsic Skill: "Dragon Scale Armorization" (Dragon Skin)

Covers his body in an armor formed from condensed magicules.

This armor absorbs surrounding magicules to repair itself, granting extremely high defense and self-repair capabilities.

Ultimate Gift: "Lord of Mood" (Mood Maker)

An enhanced form of "Show-Off" that incorporates several advanced functions:

Thought Acceleration – processes information at high speed.

Fate Alteration – advanced version of his earlier fate-rewriting, more flexible and powerful.

Contingency Manipulation – influences unforeseen events and probabilities.

Spatial Manipulation – grants control over space, enabling high mobility and spatial interference.

Multiple Barrier Generation – creates layered, powerful barriers for offense or defense.

Resistances

After his evolutions, Gabiru possesses extensive resistances:

Pain Nullification

Status Abnormality Resistance

Environmental Influence Resistance (natural phenomena)

Physical Attack Resistance

Mental Attack Resistance

Holy–Demonic Attack Resistance

These resistances, combined with his regenerative and armor skills, make him extremely hard to take down.

Gabiru can be summed up as a show-off with a good heart.

He refers to himself with a lofty "I, your lordly self"-style manner of speech, underscoring his self-confidence.

He is very easy to flatter and tends to get carried away when praised.

This often leads to comedic blunders, especially because his subordinates constantly shower him with over-the-top compliments.

Despite this, Gabiru is not purely arrogant:

He usually tries to modestly deny praise at least once before inevitably giving in and riding the mood.

He is earnest and responsible about tasks entrusted to him, doing his best to see them through.

He is deeply caring and loyal to his comrades, and his subordinates trust him greatly.

Strategic long-term thinking is not his forte, and he sometimes fails to see the bigger political or tactical picture.

On the other hand, his tactical judgment on the battlefield and his ability to command troops are excellent, earning him recognition from Rimuru and others as a potentially top-class commander.

At the beginning of the story he has excessive pride as the lizardman prince and tends to look down on other races.

This includes openly insulting Rimuru Tempest, who was then a slime, which angers Rimuru’s subordinates, especially Shion and Ranga.

However, once he is saved by Rimuru’s group from the treacherous schemer Gelmud during the Orc Lord conflict, Gabiru is forced to face his own shortcomings.

From then on, he changes his attitude, grows more humble, and begins sincerely respecting Rimuru as his lord.

His "show-off" nature is innate; it is said that even as an egg he would "roll and keep rolling wherever he could", hinting that his momentum-based personality runs deep.

Lizardman prince and the Orc Lord incident

Gabiru is the son of the lizardman chieftain, ruling over a lizardman kingdom in the wetlands of Jura Forest.

When the Orc Lord–led pig-headed army invades the forest, Gelmud manipulates Gabiru and his followers by praising and encouraging their ambition.

Convinced that the lizardmen alone should face the Orc Lord to protect their honor and to prove their strength, Gabiru leads his faction into a rebellion (internal uprising) within the lizardman nation.

His followers agree with his stance, believing they are acting to protect their race, so their actions cannot be dismissed as mere foolishness, even if their information and understanding were incomplete.

During the Orc Lord conflict, Gabiru’s misjudgment and Gelmud’s interference place him and his men in mortal danger.

Rimuru and his allies intervene and save them at the last moment, and this becomes a turning point in Gabiru’s life.

Exile and migration to Tempest

After the Orc Lord is defeated, Gabiru’s father Abil orders him to take responsibility and disowns and exiles him from their homeland.

Because of Gabiru’s strong charisma and the deep affection his troops hold for him, many of his subordinates voluntarily follow him into exile.

They all migrate to the monster nation founded by Rimuru, later named the Monster Nation Tempest.

Gabiru’s younger sister Souka and her subordinates also later move to Tempest, partly to accompany Gabiru and partly to fulfill their father’s orders.

In reality, Abil has not completely given up on Gabiru.

He entrusts Souka with the role of monitoring and watching over her brother, and his true intention is to let Gabiru broaden his horizons and grow.

Since Tempest is becoming a central hub where many different races gather, Abil believes that having Gabiru serve under Rimuru there will help his son mature.

Life and growth in Tempest

After settling in Tempest, Gabiru and his lizardman fighters are named by Rimuru.

Gabiru, Souka, and all members of the lizardman warrior corps evolve into Dragonewts, gaining wings, horns, and greatly enhanced physical abilities.

Gabiru in particular breaks through the A-rank barrier and achieves the greatest power increase among his homeland peers.

His subordinates’ appearances change into lizardman-based humanoids with dragon-like wings and horns, while Souka and her team gain more human-like forms with similar dragon traits.

According to an extra story told by Veldora Tempest, both the "more human-like" and the "more lizard-like" forms are actually the same race.

With practice and by using the skill "Dragon Scale Transformation," they can freely switch appearance, including retracting wings.

Rimuru initially intends to make Gabiru reflect for a while and plans to delay naming him as a mild punishment.

However, merely calling out Gabiru’s name ends up overwriting Gabiru’s original naming connection, making Rimuru his new namer on the spot.

This phenomenon is later revealed to be an experiment by the skill Daikenja ("Great Sage").

Even Veldora and Daikenja had not expected overwriting a name to actually work, but the experience ends up being crucial later in the spinoff story "The King of Monsters and Dragons’ Founding Tale."

Gabiru subsequently trains under Hakurou, further polishing his combat skills.

Despite his comedic blunders, his combat performance and command ability steadily improve.

Gabiru’s talents shine in both military and research areas, in much more unexpected ways than his initial appearance suggests.

Military command

Gabiru becomes commander of the Flying Dragon Squad, an aerial unit composed mainly of former lizardmen.

After Tempest’s military reorganization, he is placed in charge of:

The Blue Numbers (the Blue Corps), and

The wyverns (Flying Dragons) under Tempest’s control.

As a result, he is appointed general of the Third Legion, responsible for aerial hit-and-run warfare and aerial support.

His ability to read the flow of battle at the tactical level and inspire troops makes him extremely valuable in this role.

Rimuru himself acknowledges Gabiru’s potential, having observed his actions during the Orc Lord war:

Rimuru notes that Gabiru does not treat other races as disposable tools, but as comrades to be protected.

Although Gabiru lacks a firm grasp of the larger strategic and political picture, Rimuru judges that "letting him die would be a waste, as he could become an excellent commander."

Gabiru later fights alongside the orcs, having fully reconciled with them.

He and Geld, the Orc King, grow to mutually respect each other, exchanging praise for each other’s fighting prowess.

Research and development

Surprisingly, Gabiru also plays a crucial role in Tempest’s industrial and medical development.

He gets along well with Vesta, a former dwarf researcher, and they collaborate on developing full recovery potions, which become a major specialty product of Tempest.

Gabiru is placed in charge of cultivating Hipokte herbs, the key ingredient for healing potions.

Initially, he makes some spectacular mistakes—such as accidentally cultivating ordinary weeds instead of Hipokte herbs because he gets carried away and mismanages the process.

However, this apparent failure leads to an important discovery:

Gabiru and his team identify that Hipokte herbs are actually a magical mutation of ordinary weeds.

This insight improves Tempest’s agricultural and pharmaceutical production, showing that Gabiru’s instincts and persistence can lead to real innovation.

Through this, he earns recognition among Tempest’s leadership as a key figure in the development department, not just in combat but also in economic growth.

Rimuru Tempest

Gabiru’s relationship with Rimuru starts in a very rocky way.

When he first visits Rimuru’s group as a messenger requesting cooperation against the Orc Lord army, he openly mocks Rimuru for being a slime and looks down on him.

This infuriates Rimuru’s subordinates, especially Shion and Ranga.

Nevertheless, when Gabiru is nearly killed by Gelmud during the Orc Lord incident, Rimuru steps in and saves him.

Grateful and humbled, Gabiru pledges loyalty to Rimuru and later officially becomes one of his subordinates.

Over time, Gabiru trusts Rimuru deeply and genuinely respects him as a superior and benefactor.

Souka

Souka is Gabiru’s younger sister, also a former lizardman who becomes a Dragonewt after being named by Rimuru.

She is tasked by their father Abil with monitoring Gabiru and ensuring he grows properly in Tempest.

On the surface, the siblings constantly bicker, with Souka regularly pointing out Gabiru’s over-the-top, show-off behavior.

Despite the frequent arguments, their bond is close, truly fitting the saying that "fighting siblings are often close."

Souka harbors a romantic crush on someone extremely dangerous and high-ranking (strongly implied to be someone within Rimuru’s camp).

Gabiru is aware of her feelings but chooses to watch quietly without teasing or interfering, likely because he understands the risk of "touching that kind of person."

Vesta

Gabiru and Vesta find that they get along surprisingly well.

They collaborate in research, especially in developing complete recovery potions and enhancing the cultivation of Hipokte herbs.

Their partnership showcases Gabiru’s unexpected aptitude for applied research and practical experimentation, adding a new layer to his character beyond being a battle-happy showboat.

Veldora Tempest

Through side stories, it is revealed that Veldora occasionally talks about Gabiru and his kind.

Veldora clarifies that Dragonewts like Gabiru and Souka can transform their appearance more flexibly than most people realize.

This explains why many official and fan artworks depict Gabiru without wings—he is not misdrawn; he simply retracts or hides his wings via transformation.

Fans who are unaware of this might mistakenly call these illustrations errors, but within the story’s lore they are perfectly accurate.

Geld and the Orcs

Gabiru and the orcs, particularly Geld, have moved past their earlier conflict and now respect each other as comrades-in-arms.

In battle, Gabiru and Geld praise each other’s strength, reflecting a relationship built on mutual recognition instead of past blame.

Gabiru’s name is believed to be derived from "gavial," a type of crocodilian.

He is famous for his comedic overreactions and catastrophic bragging.

In the spinoff "The Slime Diaries," he nearly calls himself a "Hero" without understanding the heavy meaning of the title in that world.

This blunder later comes back to haunt him when the ancient Demon Lord Milim Nava visits Tempest.

She confronts him, saying she feels a strange connection to him and asks, "You’re not calling yourself a Hero, are you?" and starts picking a fight over it.

Fortunately for Gabiru, his false proclamation is never made public, so the incident is technically safe.

In the anime adaptation, the "self-proclaimed Hero" gag is changed: instead of directly calling himself a Hero, Gabiru performs a stage play during a feast titled "The Death Match Between Gabiru and the Death Panda, A Battle Even a Hero Acknowledged."

Milim still takes offense, leading to a similar comedic confrontation.

In another gag scene from The Slime Diaries, Gabiru is flung into the air but fails to deploy his wings and crashes straight down.

The anime reveals that when he panics or loses his cool, he sometimes cannot properly use his wings.

The widespread absence of wings in many artworks sometimes leads fans to think it is a drawing mistake.

However, the story firmly establishes that Dragonewts like Gabiru can switch between human-like and dragon-like forms, and can retract their wings at will through skills like Dragon Scale Transformation.

Pointing at these illustrations as "wrong" can mark someone as an uninformed fan within the community.

Finally, Gabiru’s Unique Skill "Show-Off" perfectly captures his nature: his ability to alter fate by riding the mood is both his greatest comedic trait and a genuinely terrifying power once fully awakened as the Lord of Mood.