Intermission -Venom’s Story-
I don’t remember my own name.
But what I do remember could be called the memory of my previous life.
It seemed to be the faint memory of when I was a human.
Apparently, I seemed to have been an orphan.
I went to a place called school regularly and was foolish...
Before I noticed, I was reduced to a fool who ruled over other people through violence.
As a result, I was stabbed to death by an opponent in a dispute.
By a common story, I think it was an appropriate end for me.
And so my life ended...I didn’t know if it exist or not, but I was going to the afterlife, or I should have――
When I woke up, I was drifting in a place I didn’t really know.
It was a world of full darkness, but strangely enough, things could be seen clearly.
I didn’t feel hunger, and there was no such thing as pain and suffering.
I was a merely a drifting existence.
When I looked at my surroundings, I sensed similar drifting existences like me.
I wondered if those fellows had similar memories.
I didn’t mind anything about my previous life and just drifted for a long time without doing anything.
In order to distract myself from boredom, I focused my consciousness onto the drifting existence that was similar to me.
From the bottom of my body, I could feel a power gushing forth.
I seemed to be exists as a mass of energy.
As in this darkness full of saturated energy, energy that overflowed from my body might not leak out.
How could I explain it so that it’s easy to understand?
I couldn’t explain it well because I didn’t have the knowledge, but it was like crystallized sugar inside sugared water, I think that our existences were like that.
I was able to understand the usage of that energy unconsciously.
I could move in the direction I turned my focus on, without any sound.
I called out to the other consciousnesses.
However, there was no response.
The other party didn’t have something that could be call a consciousness. It seemed to be a lump of power that merely existed.
It broke and scattered when I hit it because it was uninteresting.
It was a bit interesting, I remember having thought that.
After that, for a quite while, I spent my daily life searching for the drifting existences similar to me and destroyed them one by one.
The spectacle was clear to see as if it was daytime, despite the fact that light didn’t shine inside the darkness.
I got used to such world, besides there was nothing else I could do, and so I kept doing the same thing every day.
Then a change came upon such a life.
I met a strange fellow.
「Yo, brother. Don’t be so rough. Rampaging too much is boring too, you know?」
That fellow was different from the fellows without Will, he could speak in words.
I was surprised, and stared at that fellow without saying anything.
Words, well they weren’t actually words, it could be understood to be Telepathy (Thought Communication)[1].
However, I didn’t even know that there was a person with Will at that time.
It couldn’t be helped that I was surprised.
「Hey, hey, what’s with that surprised face? Were you worked too hard by an unpleasant guy in the Surface?[2]
If it was a disgusting Summoner, it’s okay to beat him to death you know.
Or else, was the opponent too strong? If so, it can’t be helped. Just give up.」
Saying such things, the fellow giggled.
A cheerful fellow.
After that, I learned various things from that fellow.
This world was the Underworld.
In other words, this world could also be called Hell.
It was the Spiritual World, the home of demons that didn’t possess a physical body.
I was inside such world.
I seemed to be a Lesser Demon.
Demons are an existence like spirits or angels. It seemed to be an existence that received power receives from the spirit of Darkness, and specialized in the demonic attribute.
Similarly, the Angel specialized in the holy attribute of the spirit of Light, the exception to this seemed to be called a Spirit.
To me, it was an unimportant story.
We didn’t have personal names.
There seemed to be few people with names, even amongst the high-rank existences.
However, I wasn’t troubled.
Because I could think, I could understand whether my consciousness was suited for it or not.
But because there was no name, there seemed to be little attachment towards oneself.
There were some exceptions, if we were summoned several times to the surface, we could become an existence that possessed an ego after having contact with the world.
Summoning.
It means to be summoned to the material world from the spiritual world.
By obtaining a temporary body, the pleasures of the surface could be tasted.
That is smell, touch and taste.
I could collect enough information to control the world.
A summoned demon without an ego seems to be affected by the personality of the Summoning master.
Various kind of information is received from the summoner’s side.
According to the contents of the request, it seemed that I could obtain a lump of information called “Soul”.*
We could evolve into higher beings if we collected a lot of “Souls”.
Summoning is choosing one appropriate amongst many demons.
The place was close by, and a demon with the appropriate rank for the quest seems to be chosen naturally.
It seems we obtain considerable information once we are summoned.
First of all, an ego arises.
And we can get great power by being summoned many times.
That demon come and said to me,
「Hehehe, I’ve been summoned thrice you know? How many times have you been summoned, brother?」
I didn’t know what was funny, but I heard it laugh frivolously.
Somehow, I was very angry.
I hit that fellow.
「Brother, what are you doing!?」
That fellow hit me back in anger, and after that we fought continuously and exchanged blows for a few days.
Well rather than hitting each other with our fist, we were throwing energy at each other and making the other party accumulate damage.
In my mind, hitting is an appropriate expression.
In the end, there was no conclusion.
However,
「Yo, brother. You are strong. I will call you Aniki from today.」
Because that fellow understood, the fight ended.
Well rather than a fight, it was my one-sided burst of anger.
I wanted to go to the Surface too.
At that time I felt the desire increase intensely.
From that moment, the two of us became like brothers, and every day we kept picking fights with the other people.
A mindless demon is uninteresting.
Our targets were those that had egos and had experienced being summoned to the Surface multiple times.
Every day, we did nothing but――fight――battling.
But, there didn’t seem to be someone as unusual as me, there were also some who had come from far away to pick a fight with me.
And before I realized it, my companions had reached 100 and this area of the world became my turf.
Without becoming aware of it, I had evolved into a Greater Demon.
I noticed this when I instantly killed my opponent in a fight.
I felt that a great power, different from the one I had before, ran throughout my entire body.
I’m invincible.
So, I got too cocky that time.
I, who had evolved, acquired a Unique Skill『Integrator[3]』.
In conjunction with its progenitor—that I had since my birth—the Unique Skill『Divider[4]』, it was a skill with great utility
When I hit something, it broke into pieces. This seemed to be the result of the power of division.
I thought that perhaps this ability was produced due to the trauma of being pierced and cut down in my previous life.
Well, it was an insignificant issue.
If the opponent was not my equal, then they could not oppose my power.
Besides, it was easy to increase the number of underlings since it was possible for me to assimilate the opponent and then divide them.
It couldn’t be helped that I got cocky, right?
And then, that guy appeared.
Since being in this world, I felt fear for the first time.
The existence of a genuinely strong being was carved into my soul.
A demon with red hair.
He appeared before us, and easily swept us away like we were just insects.
My followers and I were exterminated.
「Fumu. There’s no resistance. Boring」
Along with fear, I felt hatred gushing forth from the depths of my heart.
My subordinates, my companions were…!
Amidst the anger, an ability awakened inside me.
《Confirmed. Acquisition of Unique Skill『Regenerator[5]』・・・Succeeded.》
Further than division and integration.
I experienced my astral body (spirit body) regenerating in an instant.
Die!
I looked down at that red-haired demon and with full with a flood of emotions,
「Oh? Do you still alive?」
“Wave of Division” that I fired was quickly dispersed, and my astral body was crushed into pieces.
Our statuses were too different.
After that, I regenerated once again and I swore revenge.
I continued to chase him many times and challenged that demon for a rematch.
「Kufufufufu. Interesting! There’s still a person with backbone, huh?
Good.
My name is Diablo.
By the name granted by a great master, I will show you a little of my seriousness!」
End of World (World’s Collapse)
At that time, I had certainly experienced the end of the world.
Originally, the likes like me was an “unneeded thing”, I was able to understand that there was no need to use it.
Ah, the status was too different.
But I’m not regretting it, I felt a feeling of satisfaction that I had not felt until now together with death...
But I never met with it.
When I manifested in the Surface world for the first time, I was summoned by that person, Diablo.
And in front of me was a monster.
If you compared it to the knowledge from my previous life, such a tiny being should be called a Slime.
However, towards that Slime, Diablo-sama, who should be an absolute existence, kneeled.
The reason was simple.
Even the foolish I could understand
That Slime was in a different dimension.
I could agree with why Diablo-sama praised it as “God” every day.[6]
It wasn’t an exaggeration, it was the unvarnished truth.
Like me, the people who received baptism from Diablo-sama, kneeled identically.
I understood that there was a person who was overwhelming superior to me, but I didn’t mind this treatment.
Before Diablo-sama were people that weren’t any different from me.
I could agree that it was natural.
『These people were once my comrades...
Because they cried and swore that they wanted to be useful to Rimuru-sama by all means, I thought to allow them accompany me』
Diablo-sama’s voice resounded in the distance.
This person, for sure, will become our true master!
And so simultaneously,
『We, are the faithful servants of the Demon Lord Rimuru. We await your instructions!』
We pledged our loyalty to the “Demon Lord (God)” in front of us.
And, I even gained great power.
「Your name is, “Venom”. Well, please work hard」
Rimuru-sama spoke to me amiably in a carefree one.
And so I obtained it, a new name.
My name is Venom.
The demon who pledged his loyalty to Rimuru-sama.
I had achieved evolution and received a physical body in this world.
A new body and also a new power.
I became an Arc Demon (Superior Demon General), I had evolved into existence with a different class.
However, I realized one fact, even after obtaining this much power, the current me had yet to reach the feet of Diablo-sama.
But, I could still grow stronger!
In the capsule in the rear, my former companions were asleep in their newly obtained bodies.
People who would become my subordinates.
I would lead a unit under Diablo-sama’s direct control.
A female type demon with scarlet hair named Testarossa was appointed as Diablo-sama’s right hand.
She, who was originally powerful, saw her power increase just like I had.
The present me could not match her.
But, there was no need for me to be impatient.
I could still grow stronger.
And then, someday I’ll become Diablo-sama’s right hand and offer this world to Rimuru-sama.
My name is Venom.
A man who will someday stand next to Diablo-sama!
After that, Venom greatly increased in power, and was feared as a demon that exhausted and massacred hostile enemies.
[1] 思念通話(テレパシー) Shinen Tsuuwa (Terepashii).
[2] Btw Surface refers to the world where Rimuru and others are living in.
[3] 統合者Tougousha, the one who integrate things. The skill name can also mean Synthesist.
[4] 分割者Bunkatsusha, the one who divide things.
[5] 再生者Saiseisha, the one who regenerate.
[6] Our Slime has turned into a “God”. LOL XD