Chapter 2: Welcome To The Party!

The Slayer didn't know what he was expecting once he had stepped through the portal. The glowing sigils swirling around the portal gave off a seemingly divine appearance, although he's been fooled by places and beings that have claimed to be "divine" before.

Whatever he was expecting, if it wanted him dead he'd make sure they'd live long to regret it.

For about a second.

But whatever landscape he was expecting, he didn't see it once the bright light of the portal cleared.

Instead it appeared that he emerged into a large grassy plain, beautiful and serene. There were hills that surrounding him that made it appear as if he were standing on an ocean of grass.

He remained still as he took in his surroundings, looking over his inventory in his HUD. He still had his runes active, so he wouldn't have to worry about running out of ammo anytime soon. That is if there was anything that could put a dent in his armor and bypass the argent barrier surrounding him.

He noticed that Hayden had grown silent. Could it have something to do with passing through the portal? That was never a problem before. Although its initial appearance did cause some kind interference. Just where exactly was he?

He then heard a croaking sound from behind him. He spun around and what he first thought was some kind of monster or demon instead turned out to be…

…giant frogs? There were a bunch of them and were nearly 20 feet tall. Frogs as tall as Tyrant demons? Wouldn't be the weirdest thing he's killed.

As soon as he took aim with his Super Shotgun, he noticed something else happening.

Strands of blue energy started swirling around right above them. He recognized this had to be some kind of attack but he didn't recognize the attack from any demon he's fought before.

Before he could do or even think of anything else, he found himself consumed by bright orange flames.


A few minutes earlier…

"Seriously, I thought we were done with these stupid toads!", whined Aqua as she and the rest of her party found themselves practically dragged out to some plains where their most recent party member was eager to tackle some toads.

"Hey, you're the one that needed the money to repay those guy's tab!", argued Kazuma, the apparent leader of this weird little party that he's found himself in.

"I've been meaning to get my revenge against those toads for eating me before. Now I'll be able to get my chance. They'll regret even trying to make a snack out of a Crimson Demon!", said Megumin, clenching her staff and eager to fire off her explosion of the day once she heard of this mission.

"Just allow me to get close and herd all of those giant toads together! You can use your explosion magic to take a massive number of them while I'll deal with the stragglers! Such as a female knight should to look out for their fellow adventurers.", said Darkness, already blushing and getting excited at the thought of being eaten by one of the giant amphibians.

It had only been some time since she had come aboard after the great cabbage harvest and already Kazuma was feeling antsy about it.

"If she decides to jump straight into one of their mouths, I'm not pulling her out of it.", he thought to himself.

"THERE!!! I SEE A BUNCH OF THEM CLUSTERED TOGETHER ALREADY!", shouted the arch-wizard girl.

There, off in the distance was roughly 7 to 8 of the giant toads. Fortunately their attention hadn't been grabbed by the party yet.

"I shall go find some nearby to bring to the group!", said the crusader as she hurried to find a toad that had strayed from their pack. Or whatever the word for a group of giant frogs was.

"Let's just hurry and get this over with. I'm not touching any of those icky things or getting eaten again.", said the so-called goddess.

"Now's my chance to burn those toads to a crisp! Using the mightiest magic of all time!", said Megumin as she begun her incantation of the spell.

Meanwhile, Kazuma squinted at the group and his eyes widened at the little detail that he noticed from the distance.

"Hold on… IS SOMEONE ALREADY OVER THERE!?!?", he thought to himself in a panic, seeing what looked like a figure that became visible after one of the toads shifted their position.

He turned to Megumin, who was already casting the spell.

"EXPLOOOOOO-"

"WHOA-WHOA-WHOA-WAIT-MEGUMIN-THERE'S-A-GUY-THERE!!!", yelled Kazuma to no avail.

"-SION! Wha-?"

It had been too late as soon a massive and fiery explosion had erupted at where the group of toads and said stranger had been.

The young Crimson Demon soon fell over face-first, exhausted from having spent all her magic at once.

"Ugghh… sorry about that Kazuma, what was that you were saying?", she groaned.

It also seemed that only Kazuma had been able to spot the figure while everyone else had been either distracted or just wasn't looking at the moment.

"Uh… nothing, just thought I saw something.", he chuckled nervously.

"May~be it'd be better not to weigh down her conscience with her potentially vaporizing some poor random adventurer with her favorite spell.", the shut-in hero thought to himself.

"Did you say there was a guy down the-MMMPH!!", said Aqua, immediately getting cut off with Kazuma clamping his hand over her mouth.

"Yeah it did look like there was some guy down there standing with all those frogs around him but the last thing we need is Megumin being traumatized by accidentally murdering someone.", hissed Kazuma to her.

"Maybe the guy was an absolute creep or maniac that ate babies and deserved to be blown up. Did you ever think of that?", she whispered to Kazuma, trying to justify what happened.

But at that moment, none of what the two were talking about mattered as they both looked over and saw an impossible sight, leaving them both completely shocked beyond belief.

From the billowing smoke of the newly-made crater, a lone figure could be seen walking out into the open. The man appeared to barely be fazed by what just happened, or even acknowledged what happened for that matter.

"Did-did this guy just TANK Megumin's explosion magic!?! I didn't even know that was possible!!!", Kazuma thought.

"And what's with that armor?! And is he carrying a goddamn shotgun!?! It looks like he jumped from a completely different genre of gaming! This world's supposed to be a fantasy RPG, not a sci-fi shooter! Is that how he survived?! How strong is he?! He survived getting blown up… and… and… now he's WALKING STRAIGHT TOWARDS US! HE'S PROBABLY PISSED!!!!"

He then turned towards Aqua, ready to tell her to find Darkness and hightail it out of their while he went to grab Megumin but noticed the absolute fear on the goddess's face.

"N-n-no-no way… h-h-he's r-real…", she whimpered, her knees already shaking as the mystery man stomped closer.

"Guys… what's going on? Who's real?", asked Megumin, still facedown in the dirt.

"H-he… he's not supposed to be real! He's just supposed to be a myth! A bedtime story! Something made up to get the younger gods and goddesses to behave!!!", Aqua cried out.

"Hold on… you KNOW this guy!?!", Kazuma asked incredulously at the goddess.

The armored man soon stopped a few mere feet from the duo, right next to the still facedown Megumin. It appeared as if he noticed the strange blue-haired girl's acknowledgement of him and how she was aware of him to some extent.

"The Doom Slayer… a legend told amongst the gods and goddesses. Every one of them knows the story of a mortal man from a world beyond time and space that ended up in Hell without dying. How he waged a one-man war against the forces of Hell, killing billions of demons over eons and growing INSANELY powerful because of it.", she explained.

"I was just a Junior when I was first told the story by my Superior. I was so terrified at the time that I ended up wetting the bed the next day. But eventually I grew out of believing in him. I mean, you don't still believe in Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy or the Easter Bunny, right?! Eventually I even ended up telling Eris the same story and made her wet the bed.", she lamented, too terrified to realize how she briefly mentioned something embarrassing.

"But now he's here. And I'm stuck here with him…", she said, her voice practically doused in despair.

"He fought in hell, like actual Hell against ACTUAL DEMONS?", Kazuma asked. He would've found it hard to believe if it weren't for him seeing the guy get hit by one of Megumin's explosions and not die.

As for the Crimson Demon herself, she had no idea what was going on or what Aqua was rambling about gods and goddesses. But from her description, the guy that just turned her over with a nudge from his foot and was currently looking up at sounded extremely powerful to be regarded as a myth.

The man staring down at her looked weird in armor that she'd never seen before and yet she couldn't help but feel amazed at the giant.

"He IS THAT INSANELY STRONG KAZUMA!", Aqua yelled, practically shaking the boy by the shoulders.

"NOT EVEN THE DEVIL KING HIMSELF WOULD STAND A CHANCE AGAINST HIM!!!"

It then took approximately 8 seconds for the goddess of water to put two and two together on what she just said and it was like her fear, panic and despair seemed to just fade away as a smile grew on her face.

"Oh no… she's thinking… and I know what that smile could mean.", Kazuma thought in concern.

The Slayer meanwhile noticed one giant frog hopping around in the distance that had a pair of armored legs dangling out of its mouth.

"Oh Kazuma, I just got an amazing idea!", the goddess said in a singsong tune, a completely drastic shift from her previous demeanor.

"Are you serious?! You're not actually thinking of asking that guy to join our party, are you!?! What about all that stuff you said about him fighting in Hell for a billion years or something?!?", he asked.

"Oh come on! I mean, yeah sure the stories say he's fueled by pure rage and hatred but it's not like he's some chainsaw-wielding maniac.", she said, shrugging her shoulders and trying to brush off her previous state of fear.

At that moment, a revving sound could be heard in the distance behind her as the Slayer chased down the giant frog that had Darkness, chainsaw raised overhead.

The frog could only hop away, fleeing from its pursuer.

Aqua was left with a stupefied look on her face while Kazuma pointed at the scene behind her with a deadpanned expression.

"Uhhh…".

"I can hear the motor…", she responded calmly but vacantly, trying to save face.

Once the female knight had been freed and the giant toad disemboweled, official introductions began between the band of idiots and the Hellwalker, who put away his whirring weapon back into his Hammerspace Imventory.

"I am Aqua, the Goddess of Water!", she said to the Slayer, who gave no visible acknowledgement towards the strange blue-haired girl.

She was used to this at this point, given how no one else ever believed her claims. Even the only member in her party that technically knew the truth could hardly believe it was so.

"I am Darkness, Female Knight Crusader. And I thank you for the rescue.", the blond girl declared rather reluctantly, again with no visible response from the armored goliath.

"And I am Megumin, Master of Explosion Magic and Arch-Wizard of the Crimson Demons!", the weird little witch girl declared proudly and loudest of all. This did get a visible reaction from the Slayer who immediately shifted his gaze towards the "Demon", stomped towards and stared down the girl, who started shaking like a leaf from the aura of intimidation he gave off.

"Whoa hey, easy! It's just a name! It's just the name of her clan! Her HUMAN clan!", shouted Kazuma in a panic towards the Slayer.

After looking over the child, the Slayer concluded himself that there was no trace of Argent energy or any demonic malevolence from her. He merely nodded in approval, causing Megumin to shift from fear back to content.

"As for me, the name's Kazuma Sato.", the only boy of the group said pointing to himself. It was starting to become clear to him that he was about to be outvoted in letting this "Doom Slayer" guy into the party.

"And we hope that you can join our party, where we're on a quest to defeat the Devil King!", Aqua declared, offering a proposal that(if the legends about him that she grew up with were correct) he would not be able to resist.

The Slayer merely remained silent towards the group, thinking over what he had come to understand. This was a whole new world that he had next to no information of anything here. The Slayer would normally have guidance from someone such as Vega or Hayden aiding him in whatever mission he needed to get done to stop Hell and it's demons after his original awakening and release from that tomb on Mars all that time ago.

Only now for some reason, Hayden has gone silent alongside Vega. Could it be a possible side-effect of that glowing portal? Maybe. It might explain how he's able to understand the language of this strange fantasy-like world.

It wouldn't be the first time he's ended up somewhere like this unexpectedly.

"Uh, can he even understand us? He hasn't really said anything. If he's one of those strong-silent types then I guess that's cool in his own way.", said Megumin, who along with everyone else, had just been left waiting for an answer from the Slayer.

The Slayer merely nodded.

"So he CAN understand us. That's a relief.", said Darkness.

The group of 4 soon headed back to the city of Axel with their plus one following alongside them.

Along the way, both Darkness and Megumin gave several questions towards the mysterious "Doom Slayer" or just the Slayer as Aqua regarded him as.

They managed to find a way to communicate with him by either nods or shakes of the head, relying heavily on body language with the Slayer.

Once back in the main square, the Slayer took notice of the area. It had a very 18th century medieval feel to it all, from the houses to the people and their clothing. All it needed was a dash of alien tech and a couple of extra moons and it wouldn't have been that far off from Argent D'nur from back in its prime.

However, something came to Kazuma's mind.

"Hey Aqua…", the shut-in said, dragging the goddess to his side.

"I just realized… if the Spaceman from Hell here is gonna join our party, he's going to have to sign up in the Adventurer's Guild to be an official adventurer with a card and everything."

"Oh yeah… well, I'm sure we shouldn't have any issue with that. If anyone asks, we'll just say he's got really advanced armor and weapons.", replied Aqua.

Soon the group arrived at said Adventurer's Guild, where the many patrons inside soon had taken notice to the strange associate of the popular gang of misfits.

"Whoa, check out the armor on this guy!"

"Must be from waaaaaay outta town!"

"Never seen anything like it."

"Check out those exposed biceps. He must be absolutely chiseled underneath that weird helmet."

The group soon came to Luna at the front desk. "Hello. Is this new stranger your new friend and party member?", she asked. The Slayer merely remained silent.

"Yeah but right now he needs to sign up to become an Adventurer.", replied Kazuma.

"Of course. Does he happen to have the Registration Fee? If not, then you're welcome to pay for him.", she answered.

Kazuma then eyed Aqua, expecting her to fork over some of the earnings from their recent quest.

"WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT ME FOR!? I'M BROKE REMEMBER?! PLUS I NEED THAT MONEY TO REPAY THOSE GUY'S TAB! DID YOU FORGET!?", she cried.

"Oh no, like hell you can use the 'you're broke' excuse. We just got paid and it was your idea to have him join! So YOUV'E gotta cover for him with YOUR SHARE!", he shouted, pointing an accusatory finger at the goddess.

She whined until eventually relenting, knowing she didn't want to anger the Slayer with impatience.

With a huff, she put down the money on the counter to which Luna happily accepted. She then brought out a blue crystal orb-like device that the Slayer had never seen before.

"Just place your hand on top of here to receive your Adventurer's Registration Card.", she asked to the man in strange armor.

The Slayer simply followed along and held out a gauntlet-clad hand over the device.

The crystal-orb device soon started glowing, a sight that the rest of Team Kazuma were already familiar with. What they or anyone else there WEREN'T familiar with was when the device soon started crackling with a red electrical energy.

The crystal orb itself began glowing, turning from a beautiful blue to eerie red. A low hum could be heard as the device began rocking and shaking.

"What the heck is going on!?!", yelled Kazuma, as he, Aqua, Megumin, and Darkness all soon began to take a step back from the scene. A curious crowd soon was forming around Team Kazuma and the Slayer.

"Is this supposed to be happening? What kind of power is housed within this warrior!?!", asked Darkness as her thoughts were filled with the destructive power he could be capable of. Whether he was some kind of demon or just immensely strong for a human, she was already getting her heart racing at this beast joining the team.

"I don't know! I've never seen anything like this before in my life!!!", shouted Luna as the device glowed brighter and brighter until it blasted out a shockwave that knocked everyone but the Slayer back onto their backs and butts.

Once the smoke cleared, the device had apparently returned to its normal blue color. When Luna got closer, she peered at the card that the device had left. What was on the card made even less sense than what had actually happened just now.

Where the name should've been was instead a bunch of names that had been listed:

Flynn Taggart?

John Kane?

Stan Blaskowics?

"Wha-which… which one is his? W-wh-who… are you?!", Luna asked the Slayer, to which he gave no answer.

"Well… uh, you could call him the Doom Slayer, or just the Slayer.", Aqua said weakly.

Luna's terror soon gave way to wonder at the sight of the Slayer's stats.

"I don't believe it! Maxed out strength! Maxed out defense! Except for magic proficiency, nearly all of his stats are already maxed out! I didn't know such a thing was possible!", said the Guild worker.

Everyone was soon crowding around the Slayer even more in amazement at the newly started worker.

"With these stats and an already high ranking level, you could choose from even the advanced classes. Although, that low rank in magic must mean that you won't be able to cast spells and probably aren't used to casting spells all that much. Either way, you'll eventually be able to use points you earn to purchase skills so keep that card of yours safe."

The Slayer then lumbered over and took a look at the still smoking card. He was surprised that he understood the language written on it but just chalked it up to another side-effect.

He held up the card and scrolled through the different classes on it. Out of the assortment of classes, one had caught his eye.

BERSERKER

He tapped and selected the class without hesitation. His party members looked over towards his selection at his card.

"Berserker, huh? Oddly enough I thought that would work for you.", Aqua said despondently.

The Slayer merely nodded at the arch priest before the crystal-ball in the device soon cracked and shattered, falling apart into a million pieces onto the ground.

Everyone was merely left speechless from this warrior and whatever surprises he had up his metal sleeves. Luna looked at the shards on the ground and then towards the small party with a look expecting reimbursement.

With a heavy sigh, they all gave in a portion of their earnings for reparation to help pay for a replacement.


In case anyone deemed the Slayer as a bit out of character, I'm basing this version of the Slayer off of the version portrayed in the videos on the YouTube channel Doomkemon, would highly recommend.

In that version, even though he's still silent, he's a lot more expressive in body language and still decides on solving any problem with massive over-the-top violence.

Despite that, he's still caring and will eventually warm up to those around him. Just don't do anything that could get on his bad side.

I've got a couple of ideas of misadventures with the Slayer as he goes along with Team Kazuma in the world of Konosuba!