Chapter 9 - Changes

It's been a couple weeks since Artoria joined the café squad, and its been busy but not too busy at the same time. It wasn't busy because almost zero customers visited every day, causing everyone to have a lot of free time, and it was busy because of this.

There was too much free time.

Too much, in fact, that even the king of Britain became restless. Medea was somewhat able to cope with this because she was used to it, but not Artoria.

The first and second week was alright. The corrupted version just stayed silent and did the necessary work, and when they swapped one week in, the same applied to the other version. Although this one was more talkative and cheerful.

But, everything changed when the third week attacked. Artoria Alter got so bored mid-week that her hormones got to her brain and challenged Rimuru to a fight. He simply agreed and destroyed her both mentally and physically. After that, she switched her target to Medea, who constantly rejected her with the reason that it could cause damage to the surroundings.

But it did not end there since she challenged her almost all the time, to the point where Ciel got tired of this and redesigned the 20th floor into an infinite battle arena.

Also, if someone dies they will respawn, so one could literally fight to the death forever. One could not get hungry and thirsty.

There were also options, such as increased gravity, fighting a shadow of yourself and others.

All in all, it was the perfect place for Artoria, who as soon as her shift finished, will immediately go up here and start fighting. Normally, she would do it when she was impatient, to release stress, but recently she discovered it to be a perfect way to train.

The room was as big as you will it to be, could create any setting you want. Plus the fact that she has an infinite supply of mana coming from her master, cannot die, cannot get hungry or thirsty, and will always have someone stronger to fight against and can unleash her Excalibur quite freely, it will be quite tempting not to go.

Medea sometimes visited and practiced too, since she was very interested in it.

And quite commonly, the two sparred against each other. Surprisingly, or not surprisingly, Medea always won because of her broken skills, and the fact that she can unleash Ea from Gilgamesh. Eventually, they both decided for her not to use that skill and they are currently 70-5 to Artoria.

Medea didn't complain since it was also to her benefit, and Artoria wasn't annoyed all the time anymore. It was a win-win situation.

(As expected of Ciel). Rimuru also approves.

Since Ciel made some changes, so did Rimuru. But he didn't know what to do, so he did the one thing he was good at – naming.

(I will add more items to the menu!)

And here are the new items:

Dragon's fruit – not the 'dragon fruit', but the 'dragon'S fruit'

Primordial ice-cream – Comes in 7 flavours indicated by their colours! Rouge, Vert, Jaune, Blanc, Noir, Violet and Bleu. Mix the flavours up or order just one!

Dryad biscuit – No, it's not a biscuit made of Dryads, but it is a biscuit made BY Dryads, or the recipe was anyway.

(Hmm, that should do.)

He turned around to see Ciel staring down at the list with evident shock on her face.

"You're... actually... normal."

A tick mark appeared on Rimuru's face, and on the next day, Medea and Artoria could've swore Ciel's butt has grown larger.

And that was the rather mundane everyday changes that happened.

...

Devils are a race of supernatural entities appearing throughout the world. They are creatures that feed upon humanity's fears.

Devils are born in Hell, and a name is given to them that correlates to a concept that humans fear. The more feared the name is, the more powerful the devil.

For example, the 'tomato' devil would be leagues less powerful than the 'curse' devil, since more people would be scared of curses, than a tomato.

The concept does not have to refer to something that exists, since there is no indication that ghosts, zombies or angels exist in the world, but all these names have corresponding devils. Each devil manifests according to the collective consciousness surrounding their names, they are the embodiment of the fear that that 'name' represents.

Devils that die in Hell reappear in the human world, and devils that die in the human world reappear in Hell, effectively making them immortal, since as long as the name of the fear exists, the devil cannot truly die.

However, this rule is broken by the chainsaw devil. The one who is feared by most others, due to the fact that all those killed by it will be completely erased. They will not be reborn in either Hell nor the human world, since the very concept disappears.

One could question why there weren't any 'nuclear' devil, or 'genocide' devil. It was simple, since they were hunted down and killed by chainsaw. The concept will be killed, so basically the concept of that word will no longer exist, all those who knew of it would be brainwashed and those particular memories forgotten.

Rimuru thought that it was strange that everyone in this world had some sort of lock on their brain, but decided not to worry about it.

However, there was also another way to become a devil.

Most, if not all, devils appear after the name becomes feared, but what if the name existed before it was feared? Most concepts were invented by humans, so they did not exist before humans, but what about the true powers?

What about the cosmic horrors? The true gods? What happens to them?

Simple. Think of a devil being two parts. Both parts must be present for a devil to be born, the concept, and a physical or conceptual manifestation of the concept.

Let's use the gun devil. The gun was invented, checking of one of the two tick boxes. Then it brought death and power, causing it to be feared, ticking of the second checkbox, thus the gun devil was born.

But what about the horror entities and gods?

The concept existed, but there were no physical manifestation of it because the concept was so powerful no-one could even begin to comprehend what they looked like. But Rimuru...

Rimuru could see them clearly and with no side-effect.

A perfect vessel.

All the concepts noticed this irregularity of a being a couple weeks since he arrived in this world, and all rushed towards him. They didn't have an ego or anything, just the pure concept on survival instinct.

So thousands of the most dangerous concepts rushed towards Rimuru whilst he was sleeping. Normally, any one of them would completely destroy a normal human, a normal beast or even a normal god, since they didn't have the capacity to endure them. Some beings did but just barely so they didn't go to them, but Rimuru...

His capacity seemed endless.

So they all entered his body, and made their way to his soul.

But what they didn't expect was for Rimuru to not have a limit. In other words, he was limitless. It was the perfect paradise for all the concepts to grow and take form and spread their power. So they all made themselves comfortable in Rimuru's soul. A bit like a parasite, eventually they will spread to every part and take over the body to develop an ego.

But what if they was no end to the parts? Simply infinite power. Ciel noticed this invasion but deemed it not harmful but beneficial so she just ignored it, knowing Rimuru would simply be surprised for 13 seconds before shrugging it off.

Every single one of the concepts were settled in and synthesised perfectly. The weaker of the lot would be finished first, followed by the more poweful ones, but each one would bring unending fear to every being who knows of it:

...

The Hell devil, the one who is the gateway between the human realm, and the Hell realm. It is Hell itself, its guardian, therefore it knows every part of it. In terms of combat ability, it lacks in comparison to the others, but the devil is powerful enough in its own right.

There was a forbidden corner at the edge of Hell, which has a door that existed since ancient times. This leads to the void, and is one of the only doors that leads to the void. The devil knows that this place is not to be touched, even though it doesn't know what exactly is behind the door. All who has some common sense avoids this place, and is considered a taboo to even approach it.

And on this day, the Hell devil felt something change behind the door, and he felt something,

Fear.

...

...

The darkness devil, one of the primal fears, felt something change. It wasn't sure what it was, but he needed to go to the other side and escape. He felt IT, true power. Something that it will never reach.

It felt worthless and inferior, and it had every right to feel so.

So, against its pride, it ran.

...

...

The control devil, Makima, sensed something. Although she was not as powerful as the primal fears, one could not underestimate her. She has countless other devils under her control, directly or indirectly, so her strength was quite formidable.

As someone who schemes and waits patiently for her plans to succeed, she always remained calm and calculative, so when she had this feeling, her normal, neutral expression still remained on her face. Although, she was not pleased by the sudden disruption.

She sank into her thoughts for a bit before being interrupted by a knock on the door

"Come in."

A short, black-haired person who had a katana sheathed behind him walked in. He closed the door and looked at the person sitting on the chair, with her normal aura of confidence around her.

"Makima-san, there's been some suspicious activity surrounding this café."

"Hm, thank you Aki-kun. I will think about it."

"Then I will take my leave."

"Aki, some things will happen now and in the future, and I want you to be prepared for it. Can you?"

"Uh, of course Makima-san. Why?"

"That's none of your business, goodbye." She put her hands together and leaned on her desk.

"Goodbye then."

After the door closed, her smile disappeared and a cold look appeared. Chainsaw is here, and now this. (Perhaps that café he mentioned really is part of this anomaly. I should indeed pay them a visit.)

Shrugging of the shivers that ran down her back, she leaned back into her chair and closed her eyes.

...

...

On this day, the most overpowered, most broken and most feared devil was born.

"*Yawn mmm. That was a good nap."

(A/N I spent way too long on this chapter thinking of concepts that sounded cool and chuuni. And then I just used the names of the outer gods of the Cthulu mythos for the stronger ones.

And if you didn't understand my explanation before, I'll give a simpler example.

Think of experience in Minecraft. When you kill a mob, it drops experience and you pick it up. That's how normal devils are born. Think of the experience as fear, and the player as the manifestation of the concept.

And then think of a pool of experience orbs on the ground, no one to pick it up. It's pretty useless there since it can't do anything. Then a player walks along and all of it is picked up and absorbed.

The more experience, the longer it takes to absorb. These are the concepts such as Azathoth and stuff.

So yeah. I just hope that makes sense.)

Last Chapter Next Chapter