The path from the cavern to the surface was long, but free of monsters. The monsters appeared in different parts of the cave from where Rimuru wanted to go, steering clear of this area because of the giant gate that blocked the way outside.
But the gate didn't really stop us. Three humans opened it for us. They argued at the door for a moment, before using some sort of stealth skill and disappearing deeper into the cave. Honestly, it wasn't a very good stealth skill, though. I could still see them just fine, after all.
Rimuru and I left through the door while they weren't looking.
Almost immediately after we left the deep part of the cave, we met Veldora's 'guardian.' He was a big, mean snake, dropping from the ceiling in front of us. Now that was stealth! Flick!
I beheaded him with a stream of water before he could do anything to us.
'Food! Lotsa magicules!' I could tell just from looking at it.
'Well, you did kill it… Just make sure to drop the body out, I wanna analyze it, too.' Rimuru gave me the go-ahead and I ate it. It did have a lot of magicules, but that wasn't the best part. It had an organ for sensing heat, and it could use magic to create a sort of acid breath in its stomach. I could mimic both. 'I wanna more snake!' I declared happily, dropping the useless carcass out of my stomach for Rimuru to analyze.
'You killed the snake. There aren't any more.' Rimuru replied, analyzing the snake. A moment later, he transformed into a giant copy of the snake and used the poison breath on a nearby rock as a test. No more rock. I couldn't mimic the snake that well. I could create the poison in my stomach by mimicking the snake's poison-making organ, then spit it out, but I couldn't do something like Rimuru.
…
After meeting the snake, Rimuru got us lost. Since I could only follow the magic, I wasn't much help either. Eventually he found a new section of the cave, talking about a 'mental map' that his skill had given him. We found lots of yummy food… monsters, along the way, though, so I was happy.
We found a centipede, or at least that was what Rimuru called it, that taught us to create a paralyzing gas breath. We found a spider that taught us how to create thread. We found a bat that taught us how to send out sound waves. It also had a skill called Drain, that allowed me to better adjust the amount of magic that I took out of or put into things with my Breakdown and Combine Processor sub-skills, and we found a lizard that was covered in a thick shell that did nothing to protect it from the snake's poison breath.
Rimuru and I's mimicry skills seemed to function differently. While I could, theoretically, mimic an entire being, it was hard, so I didn't even bother trying. Instead, I just mimicked the useful parts of them, giving me access to their powers, adjusted for my slime body. I had better small-scale control of my body than he did, apparently. He could mimic their powers in his slime form, too, but it was significantly weaker than my mimicry unless he mimicked the entire being.
There were certain skills that he could use to their fullest in his slime body, but I wasn't exactly impressed by him hanging himself from the ceiling by a strand of sticky thread, which I had to break with a water-whip.
He spent a lot of his time after that practicing using the sonic wave skill to speak. Why someone would want to scream "I COME FROM OUTER SPACE!" At a cave wall, though, I don't know… It was kinda funny when I used my version of the skill to yell "I EAT YOU!" At one of the armored lizards, though. It made me laugh when it started running in the opposite direction.
After a while, we made it out of the cave for the first time in my life.
'SOO MUCH NEW STUFFS!' I couldn't help yelling that in my mind the moment that Rimuru and I made it out of the cave. Green trees, covered in leaves, delicious-looking birdies flying through the air, buggies and grasses on the forest floor, and countless other things that I'd never seen before. Rimuru watched as I did my best to eat at least one of everything in sight, but I had to cut up trees before I could get one into my stomach. As it turned out, pulling magicules out of plants made them die. Shoving magicules into them made them do all sorts of cool stuff. Some plants, mushrooms and leaves, mostly, would become incredibly deadly when you shoved magicules into them, while others would take on healing properties. Others would simply die, upsetting me a bit, but I'd find something else new to move on to analyzing with my skill. Before long, it was late afternoon. We were sliding down a path that we'd found, when a group of wolves entered the range of my detection.
I was actually rather surprised by that. Back in the cave, monsters were strong enough that they were reckless and overconfident, but these wolves weren't too strong… Around a C-rank or so. Sensing the combined auras of Rimuru and I should have sent them running.
Rimuru went "Ah…" and scared them away after a little while, though, so they clearly weren't courageous enough to actually attack us, unfortunately. I wanted to go after them, but they were fairly quick little fellows. I might be able to catch up with my mimicked bat wings, but Rimuru told me no.
'Big Brother! Food!' I noticed it first. A group of little green people, all carrying crude weapons and equipment.
'That's not food, Risa. That's a lot of goblins. We might even be in danger, here. Maybe…?' Rimuru replied to me.
I just gave him a look. 'Danger?' I didn't sense any of that from these things. I sensed food, though. A little magicules, too… I still wasn't anywhere near as strong as Rimuru in pure force, after all, so I needed all the food I could get.
"Grah! Strong ones, have you business here?" The lead goblin asked us.
'Talking food?' I thought.
'Don't eat them.' Rimuru scolded me before replying to the goblins with his voice, which he'd had me help him tune the volume of. "Good to meet you! I'm Rimuru, a slime! And this is Risa!"
Immediately, the goblins began prostrating themselves in front of him, "Gah! Strong one, w-we recognize your mighty power! Spare us your powerful vocal weapon!"
Rimuru gave me an annoyed look before talking again, quieter this time. I beamed. Loudness is best for dealing damage, after all. "Sorry. I haven't quite figured out volume yet, apparently."
"We need no apology from the likes of the great you!" The goblin leader immediately replied.
I still wanted to eat them, but Big Bro Rimuru wanted to hear them out. Apparently, eating 'sentient' beings was bad, unless they attacked you first. He even told me that Big Bro Mr. Magic Man would've been disappointed in me for suggesting it, so I had to take that to heart.
Apparently, the goblins had a village nearby, and they'd sensed two powerful presences nearby, me and Big Bro Rimuru. Big Bro was surprised that we counted as powerful monsters, but I was proud of it. In the end, the goblins ended up escorting Big Bro and I to their village.