Chapter 5 - The "Traveling Group"
"""WELCOME BACK, RIMURU-SAMAAA!"""
"HOLY COW, you guys don't need to give me that every time I come back from something as short as that," Rimuru said to the crowd already waiting for him. "Plus, someone on the other side is already a bit suspicious, and she expects us to go meet her, and soon," Rimuru explained. "I'm not staying long, me, Shion, Shuna, Diablo, Veldora, Ramiris, Chloe, Milim, and Ranga should be going."
"""Awwwww..."""
Then someone spoke up from the crowd. "What really happened? You just came back right after we got notified of your departure," It was Rigur.
"Hmm... I was there for quite a while, maybe time doesn't progress when we're there? If that's the case, then we'll be back before you know it!"
""Alright! Have a safe trip, Rimuru-sama!""
"Let's go!"
"Alright, Milim, and the rest of you, let's go! See ya!"
Then, they all stepped through the gate and the gate blinked out of existence.
"""..."""
"HI, LYNN! I'm back!" Rimuru called to Lynn as he came out of the forest with the other members of the "traveling group". He was riding on Ranga, also to show that he's a friend, not a foe.
"Oh? That was longer than I expected... Well anyway, you kept your promise, so let's put all that behind us. Now, who are these... interesting group of people?"
"Well, they were deep in the woods, so it took this long to get here. And this is Shion, Shuna, Diablo, Ranga, Veldora, Ramiris, Milim, and Chloe. Guys, this is Lynn, I bumped into her on my way to that city. Say hi, everyone," Rimuru said cheerfully.
In truth, they were not deep in the woods at all. When they arrived, Rimuru made them human homoculuses, to hide their... non-human features, and also for some of them to not give out too much of an aura.
In the end, he made Shion, Shuna, Diablo, Milim, Veldora, and Ramiris a homoculus for each of them. Rimuru himself had the aura-supression mask, which he would wear unless he needed to show his face, also to prevent unnecessary... romantic... attention. Making Ranga a human homoculus would be too much of a hassle, and also Ranga would need to get used to the body, which would take too much time. Chloe is already a human, and she has more... let's just say, temper control and aura control... than the others, so he trusts her to keep her magicules in.
Everyone basically looked the exact same except Shion and Shuna didn't have their horns, Diablo's sclera is white and the yellow and red streaks in his hair went from standing out to much less noticable, Ramiris got her adult form back (of course without the wings), and Milim's and Veldora's auras and strength got toned down by A LOT. Now they're all pretty much nerfed to the point of not one-hitting probably everything in this world, and Rimuru made sure Ranga and Chloe only used a small fraction of their power since they still retained their full power without a homoculus.
Rimuru strictly made sure all of them put up no barriers, used no enhanced/enchanted weapons (only regular all-physical dmg ones), no body or weapon enhancements, and don't use too many skills. No Ultimate Skills or powerful ones, either. All of this includes Rimuru too, of course.
But natural defences or resistances can't be helped, like Ranga's almost-impenetrable fur and Rimuru's Thermal resistance, so the other things that can were toned down a lot.
Also, Rimuru wouldn't want to seem like the leader of the group (and you know why), so he strictly told his companions to not call him Master, Lord, Rimuru-sama, Your Majesty, etc. "Calling me by just my name without formalties is not showing disrespect," is what Rimuru told them. They had a hard time doing so, but practiced while conversing on the way back to Lynn. By the time they meet civilization again, it'd be hard for people to notice them trying not to address Rimuru formally as their leader, their king.**
After the introductions, they exchanged questions and answers. Rimuru didn't know what the maximum possible level is, because it obviously isn't what he had when he first came to this world, so he hid his group's levels until he got a possible level range.
Lynn asked Rimuru about his "traveling group", to which he answered as vaguely as possible while still giving an acceptable answer without giving away too much information. Rimuru waited until she finally seemed to ran out of questions, then took the chance and asked some of his own.
"...Well, I've got no more questions, what about you?" (Lynn)
"Hmm, can you tell us about that city over there?"
"That is the city of Mondstadt, also the name of this elemental region," she said. Elemental region... I'll have to ask about that later, Rimuru thought to himself. "It is the City of Freedom, where anybody can live a happy unrestricted life, protected by the walls and guards of the city. You don't need much of a pass or ID or anything to get in, but I suspect you'll need to go through a bit more if you want to live in the city. Or are you going to be camping and traveling around outside the walls?"
"...Thanks, that's helpful. And for the nights, I think we'll just camp here and there, what do you think?" The last part was directed at his companions.
"""Yes, Rimuru-sa- aaaa..."""
"Well, seems like you guys still need to work on that. But anyway, we all agree on camping, so we'll spend the nights outside the city walls most of the time."
"And you guys don't need to unhesitantly agree to everything I say, you can voice your own opinions, you know?" Rimuru hissed to them, not in a criticizing way.
""Yess, Rimuru-sama"" they whispered back. Of course, quiet enough that it can be considered a whisper, but as expected, loud enough that Lynn could hear.
"What was that?"
""We said 'Yes'""
"...No, I meant the 'formally addressing Rimuru as your superior' thing"
Drat. She heard. Seriously, does this woman have super hearing or something?
{No, she doesn't}
That's not what I meant!
"We'll go back to that later, for now, is there anything else you'd like to ask or tell us because we'll be setting off to the city of Mondstadt now?"
"Hmm, well, there are many people there who sell items and food, and some stores where you can buy some better ingredients for cooking. Sara, the owner of Good Hunter has this cooking stove next to her stand/stall, she'll let you use it for cooking. Kathryne is the owner of the Adventurer's Guild, go see her for adventurer/adventuring -related stuff. You can also get an Adventurer's Handbook from her, which has missions which you can do if you're ever bored or looking for something to do. Majorie sells materials used for upgrading and enhancing things, for some currency known as Anemo Sigils. I don't know where to get them, though. There's also Dawn Winery, where they sell drinks... let's just say, not recommended for someone around your age." Lynn directed this mainly toward Rimuru and Milim, who both had the appearance of a small child.
"While outside the walls of the city, watch out for monsters, mainly Hilichurls and slimes, in Mondstadt. There's paths to travel along, and many other interesting things in the wilderness. Always be careful and stay safe. ... Are you listening?"
They'd stopped listening after she said 'slimes', all of them for different reasons. Rimuru wanted to go out and find one, or even better, some, immediately, Milim wanted to see how strong they are, Shion and Shuna are picturing what they thought the slimes of this world looked like and were comparing their images of them to Rimuru, Veldora is wondering if they are intelligent, hostile or not, etc, Ramiris is wondering if there are different types and if so, what types, Diablo is having trouble deciding if he should ki- dispose of them all immediately, and Ranga... is just excited to see them.
"Hey, what're you all thinking?" Lynn suddenly jerked all of them out of their thoughts.
"""Ah, nothing!"""
"Well, sorry for that, if you don't have anything else to say, we'll be off now."
"Okay, see ya!"
Then, Rimuru and his group left, forgetting to ask Lynn about the "elemental region" she'd mentioned.
As Lynn watched the group of travellers head off to Mondstadt City, she wondered why the seemingly second-youngest blue-haired girl was acting like the head of the travelling group...
"Okay, thanks for everything you told me, you can leave if you don't have anything else to say. I have some... things... to attend to." Jean said, her mind in a different dimension contemplating over every absurd thing about that bright blue slime the two girls told her.
"Okay, we'll be taking our leave now!"
Lumine and Xiangling had turned around and were just about to go to the door to exit, when it creaked open a little and a head, which looked like it belonged to a small child, with shoulder-lenth platinum blue hair - The exact same color as that slime, they thought - and a white mask with black markings and a red dot on, poked in.
"Oops, hi! Sorry if I'm interrupting, but can I see those two for a bit? Regarding what they saw." The kid pointed to the frozen (not literally) Lumine and Xiangling, who were standing in front of a desk with the frozen Jean behind it. All three of them had a look of suprise, shock, and confusion on their faces, mainly due to the fact that this was unheard of, nobody said or hinted anything about this at all!
Added to the fact that this girl's hair is the exact same color of that slime, which makes her all the more suspicous. She doesn't look like she's from anywhere near here, no one has ever seen anyone like her. She obviously knew about the slime sighting, as far as they know, nobody knows about it except Lynn, Jean, and the two first-hand witnesses. And who in Teyvat just let her in the HQ like it was the most casual thing in the world? She is most definitely new, how does she know this much about everything?
Many more questions filled their heads, but in the end Lumine and Xiangling agreed to have a little chat because they weren't needed by Jean anymore, and were free to do what they do now. So Lumine and Xiangling followed the mysterious girl out of the building, and to Good Hunter. They saw a whole group there waiting for them, which seemingly looked to the girl as their leader... Strange. Better not look too into it now. They sat down at a table, and talked while a huge amount of food was prepared for the now rather large group. Seriously, is this kid rich or something? they thought, noting how casually she was ordering so much Mora's worth of food on such a 'regular' day like this.
"So," the blue-haired girl said, suddenly changing into a serious expression, "who knows about t- what you saw?"
""...!?"" They totally wasn't expecting that. The way she worded it made it sound like she knew all about that slime, it seemed like she was asking with the intention of not making it publicly known, and not with the intention of knowing more about it. Weird...
"Well, let's just start from the beginning. -"
(so sorry again for the previous long wait, I'm going to be making longer chapters now, they're all going to be probably 1-2k+ from now on. I can't see the word count when I'm typing my chapters, so I have no idea if it's as long as it's supposed to be.)
(also, I'll be writing more cliffhangers in the first part, I find it easier to make chapter transitions this way. By 'first part', I mean the original background story and not the mini-adventures that will start after everyone gets everything sorted out.)
(that's all I have to say, sometimes I'll have some chapters already planned out or written down in a story Doc, so don't expect review responses in those pre-written chapters)