Kaval

"Hey, are you okay?" A childish voice woke me up, while something that felt strange touched my face, it was neither wet nor dry, neither solid nor liquid, but a combination of all four.

I opened my eyes, my healing had automatically activated and fixed me just as I had set it to be.

Looking at the blob of blue and the tentacle-like thing extended from it to my face, I was amazed.

'Is this Rimuru? It must be, the only slime that can talk is Rimuru. I don't see any brain or vocal cords...' I thought and inspected the slime from a scientific point of view.

It made no fucking sense.

The tentacle quickly retracted back into the slime's body. It turned slightly pink in the middle while retreating and said, "Ah... hm... You are naked... And why are you looking at me like that..."

Hearing the guarded voice broke me out of my thoughts and I quickly checked my skill. The shards had reset, I had five.

I spent a shard to make a power. This power gave me the ability to make any type of ordinary clothes, armor, and weapons from Magicules instantly. From leather, Silk, and steel to even modern things, no technological items, however; Nothing magical or epic, either. And the limit was that the created items could only exist for 72 hours before turning back into magicules and disappearing. Otherwise, they were just like original things, no difference whatsoever. This limit was of no concern as I could just remake the items, and the cost of Magicule to make them was not too much.

I had 4 shards left for today.

A deep blue light appeared around my body as clothes appeared and fit my body. Black T-shirt, pants, boots, and a cloak, all made from comfortable yet durable modern fabrics based on my memory of how they felt.

'Finally...' I sighed in relief.

The slime jumped back cautiously but seeing me not attacking, it stopped retreating.

I looked at it, this time with more focus, 'This little slime is going to become a supreme god... How ridiculous... Do I have to interact with it? There are many pros and cons...'

I began thinking. On one side, Rimuru was going to become super strong with his own nation of monsters; Being friends with him was going to bring countless benefits. On the other hand, he was the center of all conflicts from this point on, a trouble magnet.

Another factor to consider was the fact that I was a human, not a monster. At this stage, it was not wise to be close to him as a human, he needed to develop himself and build his nation and stuff. Affecting the timeline was not a wise choice at the moment.

'The most important question is, do I need him? Absolutely not.'

I already had a few ideas to use the endless versatility granted by power manipulation to cheat the magicule limit of the skill, the powers used my magicules to work after all, and scale my powers to infinity, but I needed time and some research.

What was the best course of action? Both.

Leave now and find a safe place to research magicule and figure out the path to endless magicules thus power, then interact with others.

Connections, friends, and relationships bring responsibility, and that brings conflict and problems that I was not ready to face.

'It's decided.'

I turned around and walked away.

"HEY! Don't ignore me!" The slime yelled behind me.

...

Kaval was not happy, this mission was a little too dangerous. Even though he was confident in his party's abilities, investigating Veldora's cave was still not to be taken lightly.

No one knew how or why, but the aura of the storm dragon had suddenly disappeared. This was not how it was meant to be, it was supposed to gradually weaken and disappear a few decades or centuries later.

This anomaly had alerted the guild and his party was the unlucky one to be tasked with investigating. The forest itself was filled with all sorts of monsters, but that was not the problem, the cave was said to hold even stronger monsters and the possibility of magicule poisoning was high for humans.

Looking at his teammates, especially the one he was supposed to protect, he sighed and could only hope for the best.

As the gate became visible, he prepared himself for any possible danger while they approached it.

But as they got close, they heard something unexpected...

"You were the one who woke me up while yelling so loud, the walls cracked! You don't get to talk!" A young man's voice, quite pleasant but still not something supposed to be in this place.

"Why would anyone sleep naked in a cave? Are you a pervert?!" The second voice was childish, probably belonging to a 12-year-old boy.

"Listen slime, I have somewhere to be and am not interested in being delayed by you here, move aside!"

Kaval turned and looked at his team with confusion, "What the hell is going on there?"

The duo shook their heads, equally bewildered but that did not stop them from listening more...

"Why did you ignore me? I just wanted to apologize."

"Does your apology make me money? What use does it have? Right. Nothing! don't waste my time."

"You are rude."

"And you are a slime, stop blocking my way."

"You know what, I don't want to!"

"Okay, try and stop me then."

Boom!

The trio retreated as steam exploded forth from the gate, obviously from the collision of fire and water. Their view was obstructed due to the hot steam but they faintly saw someone fly above their heads, chased by something small and round.

"I am not done with you, wait!" Was the last thing they heard as the two vanished...

They looked at each other and laughed.

Kaval relaxed a little. It seemed that the cave was not that dangerous since another investigation party seemed to have been inside ahead of them. Possibly from another country.

But the part about the slime, he shook his head, 'Probably a nickname or something, slimes don't talk...'

But then he remembered the small ball he saw chasing the man, 'I must be imagining things... Probably an artifact?'

---

Power Manipulation Shards:

[Self-Healing x2] [Pyrokinesis x1] [Enhanced Durability x1] [Flight x1] [Item Creation x1]