"What are you reading?" The voice of a young man was heard as he made his way over to the living room. "Hm? You bought more manga?"
The girl on the couch sighed, "What? Want to read it or something?" She looked up.
The boy smirked, "Depends what it is." He reached over to grab the book as his sister handed it to him. "Hm, That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime. Is it another one of those isekais?"
She muttered, "Yeah. It's been getting popular recently so I wanted to see what it was about."
The boy's eyebrow rose, "Popular?" His rust red eyes settled on the protagonist on the cover. "A slime? It's mildly amusing I guess." Watching as his sister stood up to go get a snack, he warned her, "You'll get chubby again if you do that."
She gave him the middle finger, "Fuck off."
"Haha." He sat down on the couch. "Let's see."
He felt himself almost start internally laughing as he thought back to that day. "To think I would end up in this situation." From what he could tell, he had ended up in the exact same cave, in nearly the exact same situation, as that slime had gotten himself into at the beginning of that manga.
All things considered, a situation that would have been pretty bleak in most fantasy worlds.
Fortunately for him, things were different for him. "It's a good thing I read the light novel."
Copying the movement technique described in the light novel by Milim, he felt as he glided around the cave ground with shocking speed. By taking advantage of the smooth yet maneuverable surface that slimes possessed, the dragonoid had managed to create a fast and efficient movement method surpassing those even Rimuru had come up with when in the body of one such monster.
To be expected from such an experienced warrior he guessed. And something he himself was glad to know about this early on.
Stopping himself as he made contact with what felt like a tough grasslike substance, he immediately pinpointed what it was he had found. "Hipokute Herbs." Magically charged plant growth.
He had figured he would come into contact with such a material eventually, yet he was annoyed by something else. At least for now, he couldn't analyze it. He knew he had [Great Sage].
All beings in this world had the intrinsic ability to tell what skills they had at their disposal.
However, at least for now, it was dormant.
Still in the process of adapting to his soul. Worse still, it definitely didn't help at all that he also didn't know when it would awaken as well. It was a matter of waiting at this point for his most useful skill to awaken. He slumped his body for a bit, reducing himself to little more than a puddle.
He could at least still eat the material, which was good to know. [Predator] was well and truly active, along with his other two skills.
[Genius] and [Soul Link]. As he began to eat through the nearby Hipokute Herbs, he silently began to run through his knowledge of them.
[Genius] was a mental amplification focused Unique Skill, similar to the [Sage] family of skills or the [Thought Acceleration] ladder. When active, the skill would amplify all information processing abilities as well as auto organize and simplify all knowledge into efficient data packets. It didn't take him long to figure out that combined with [Great Sage], it could create an exponential feedback loop of incredibly efficient thought and analysis beyond anything Rimuru could do at this stage. Possibly even allowing for comparable mental specs to what [Wisdom King Raphael] could achieve at its peak.
Granted, such buildup would take time and required nonstop, uninterrupted thought, so it wasn't as useful as the ultimate skill. Although he did take note of one other sub skill, [Zero Time].
[Zero Time] sped up the user's thought speeds by a factor of infinity, effectively freezing time for them. Theoretically, this skill was useful but the problem was hardware. He was by no means fast enough to take full advantage. The gap in efficiency between [Thought Acceleration], which he could use with [Great Sage], and [Zero Time] wouldn't actually be that different all things considered as he couldn't take advantage of such thought speeds yet. [Zero Time] was better optimized for fighting beings like the True Dragons than normal people.
He stopped for a bit. "I guess if I timed it right I could use it to perceive things in the [Suspended World]." Although not much more than that. He still wouldn't be able to physically move in it.
"No way I could fight them anytime soon."
That left [Soul Link] for the skill that he could make use of now. [Soul Link] was simple. It linked souls. Specifically, it created an imaginary corridor between himself and those with the capacity to link with him. This would allow for the sharing of information, magical power and a few other things depending on the person and active skills.
For the time being, he could sense he was linked with one person. Another slime he could sense was about 400 meters away in another part of the cave. Rimuru Tempest, he figured as much.
"He must have woken up earlier." Whether or not this meant Rimuru was more spiritually in tune with the giant amoebas or he got lucky remained to be seen. Judging off the man's behavior in the story though, he guessed the former. He thanked the world that at the very least, it didn't seem like he had woken up that much earlier than him. Rimuru was at least nearby. Navigating a massive cave system in search of another blind slime would not be fun.
[Soul Link] gave him a vague sense of where Rimuru was, convenient, so he at least had that going for him. Which meant he wasn't in a particular hurry to catch up. Rimuru didn't get to work on his journey to escape the cave until decently far in.
"3 months to be exact," which meant he wasn't exactly on very strict time. He stopped his thought process as he realized something. "What the hell is wrong with Satoru Mikami?" He muttered.
That thought suddenly appeared in his mind as he thought about it. "He spent 3 months doing absolutely nothing but mindlessly collect herbs like a fucking Genshin Impact streamer?" No wonder he was so excited to hear [Great Sage]'s voice.
Knowing that…should I talk to him now?
[Great Sage] was likely still a ways away from waking up for either of them so things would definitely get lonely fast. Meanwhile he had [Soul Link], which would allow for communication even if only between the two of them for now.
"I'll talk to him when I'm done with this patch of herbs." That was at least one thing he could say Rimuru did really well early on. While probably mind numbing beyond belief, collecting so much magical material this early on was extremely useful.
"I'm so bored!" Yelled out a particularly special human-spirited slime as he felt the end of what felt like the infinite patches of grass he was eating.
How much time had it been? 10, 20, 30 hours? He couldn't tell. How much ground had he covered? 100, 1000, 1000000 meters? That he couldn't tell.
With little more to do than mindlessly consume the things around him, he had found that outside of that, his current existence was, if anything else, incredibly boring. He couldn't see, hear or taste anything, limiting his experiences to feeling around looking for anything interesting. And even that was hard given he couldn't feel heat, cold or pain.
End result. He was in a state of numbness to the world. Worse still, with no one to talk to.
He felt as his body rolled around through yet another patch of grass, absorbing its contents into his own body. "Just where am I?"
With what little he knew, wherever he was, what rocks and had sparse patches of plant life. That didn't narrow his options down very much.
"Aaargh!" I'm gonna go crazy here! Next thing he knows, he's going to start hearing voices!
"Yo, can you hear me? Hello?" Another voice appeared in his mind. The angry slime stopped. Did he finally lose it? The voice quieted down for a bit as the happy go lucky slime pondered his sanity. "Is this thing working?" The voice asked aloud.
The new addition to this world questioned himself. He had activated [Soul Link] and was even able to perceive the metaphysical transferring of sounds from him to the clueless recipient in front of him. Yet even with that, he had gotten no response.
Maybe he's confused. "You're not imagining things. I have a magical power that allows me to talk directly into other people's minds if there's a link present. For some reason, you are linked to me."
"Wait…so I'm not crazy?!" He heard back.
"Whoa there, big fella! I wouldn't go that far!"
"Hey!" He stopped, "Wait, never mind that. Do you know where we are? Can you see? Where are you? What day is it? Why can't I feel…"
"Stop!" They stopped talking. "Look, can't say I have much to tell you. Judging off of your questions, it looks like you're in the same situation as me."
The disappointment on the other end was palpable. "So you can't see or hear either?"
"No, from the looks of it we were both reduced to jelly. I can confirm I was human before this though."
"You too then." The friendlier of the two asked, "Do you have a plan at least?" The other slime chuckled, "I…I haven't been doing much."
The new arrival seemingly stopped to think for a bit, "Well, to start off with." The original protagonist felt as if something changed. The new addition explained, "I just used my skill to connect us more directly. You should be able to see me now. I'll try to jiggle around for you. Can you see me?"
The slime soon to be named Rimuru looked around and spotted the moving mass. "Whoa, I can see you! You really are like me!" He started to make his way over to the newly spotted slime.
"Good to know because that's pretty much all I can do at this point. We can only really feel around for now. I was hoping you might have a plan." The ex-reader of this world lied through his teeth.
"Sorry. I've just been going with the flow."
At least he was true to character, the new arrival internally commented. "I was looking at you for a bit before I learned to speak with you. You were eating the plants and rocks around you. Why?"
The original slime stopped, "Well, I was bored so…" He couldn't find more to say.
"I see. Just killing time then." He sighed, "Hm, look. At least for now, there's not much we can do beyond feel around. Knowing that, how about we just pick a direction and get moving? As long as we stay together, I don't see how our situation could change in a negative way if we do that. The way I see it, nothing will change if all we do is sit around. It's a gamble for sure, but we don't have anything to lose by trying to navigate this place so why not?"
The more carefree slime thought about this. "I guess I see your point. Definitely better than what I was going to do at least." He commented.
"Which was?" The new arrival asked.
"I was just going to eat stuff until I ran out."
"You have a [Stomach] ability too, right? If you do, then I don't see why you shouldn't do that. Just…it's kind of dumb that you weren't at least moving in a set direction. That wastes time and basically guarantees you'll get nowhere."
"You don't have to be that blunt, you know."
"It's true though." The ex-reader explained, "Seeing how you don't seem to have much push to go anywhere, how about I lead the way for now and you just follow. That way we don't have any problems deciding where to go for now."
"Uh, sure!" The other slime exclaimed.
"Great. Alright then. Let's get moving."
Making some headway through the cave, it didn't take long for the original protagonist to speak. "Hey, so, where were you from back on Earth?"
"Making conversation, eh?" The new arrival teased back. "An extrovert, I see."
"It's boring, okay? Also, I just thought it would be fun to get to know each other. It's not like there's much else that we can talk about here."
"Fair enough. I'm…American. I graduated with a degree in astrophysics and mechanical engineering. I was also working on a mathematics degree on the side for fun, I guess? Not much I can say about my job itself though. I was just…there. I worked for NASA on a few projects..." The new slime stopped to think, "I think I'll stop there for now." He turned to look at his companion. They didn't respond. "What?"
"Nothing, just…you're making me feel inadequate." The original slime slumped a bit.
The new slime chuckled, "Hey, I'm not judging if you were just some random 9 to 5 worker, you know. The way I see it, a job title isn't really something I value. At the end of the day, we're only really out here to try and enjoy our life." Which was why he considered himself a total failure.
He waited as the original protagonist seemingly thought about it. "I can understand that." He sighed, "Can't say I was enjoying life much though so I wouldn't say that makes me much better."
"Right…" The ex-reader thought to himself. "But hey, that doesn't mean you can't do something to change it, right?" He said.
"I guess so." Yes, that was after all the point of an isekai. Its draw was the escapism of it all.