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もっとも……洞窟の中にいたとしても、冷静に考えりゃ無事にはすまないんだが、それでも外よりはマシだっただろう。

もっとも……洞窟の中にいたとしても would be "Even if you are in the cave..." and それでも外よりはマシだっただろう be "It would be better than being outside".

But I don't understand this part very well: 冷静に考えりゃ無事にはすまないんだが. I know that 冷静に考えりゃ is "thinking calmly", but 無事にはすまない confuses me. I think "すまない" must be another word, because "sorry" doesn't make sense, but I don't recognize it without kanji.

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    The gist of it (even w/o context) seems to be: It's reasonable... even if you're inside a cave, if you think about it calmly, you won't get away with it without incident, but even so, it would be better than being outside.
    – Robert
    Commented May 31, 2017 at 3:50
  • The two parts are. Part 1: 冷静に考えりゃ: If (you) think calmly. Here reba->rya (the conditional stem). Part 2: 無事にはすまないんだが (It) doesn't come off without a hitch. Negation of buji ni sumu. With explanatory no and daga.
    – Robert
    Commented May 31, 2017 at 4:08

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無事 means safety, and 済む is a verb that means to finish. 無事に済む is a very common set phrase that means to finish without trouble. In this case it means something more physical: to get away without being injured. 考えりゃ is 考えれば, a colloquial eba-to-ya contraction. This もっとも is something like admittedly, though.

So 洞窟の中にいたとしても冷静に考えりゃ無事にはすまない means "even if we had been in the cave, come to think of it calmly, we could not have gotten away without getting injured".

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