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In Saeko Busujima's room, she lay on the tatami floor, the same haunting voice echoing in her mind again and again, tormenting her relentlessly.
Eventually, she sat up with a sigh of defeat. Her eyes drifted toward the round, glowing moon hanging in the night sky, and she fell into deep thought.
In the end, she made up her mind—she had to see for herself.
Slowly rising to her feet, she picked up the wooden practice sword beside her and slipped out of her room, heading for the cellar.
She reached the patch of weeds that covered the entrance and hesitated for a moment before pushing forward, lifting the iron hatch in the ground.
Beneath it was a pitch-black passageway leading underground. Who knew what might be waiting inside?
With the iron gate yawning open before her, she hesitated once more, then took up an oil lamp, lit it, and carefully stepped inside.
The winding staircase seemed endless. Step by step, the faint glow of her lamp pushed back the suffocating dark as she descended.
After several long minutes, her feet finally touched level ground.
She set the lamp on a hook nearby, and its soft light spilled outward, revealing the chamber around her.
Only then did she realize the walls were lined with weapons—real weapons, every edge sharpened.
At that moment, Saeko finally understood why her father had always forbidden her from coming here.
Among the racks of weapons sat a large iron chest, its surface bound tightly by heavy chains fixed into the ground.
Curiosity tugged at her. She stepped closer, staring at the chest. For reasons she couldn't explain, her instincts screamed that the very thing she was searching for lay inside.
Clang—crack.
Without warning, the chains binding the chest began to split and fall apart on their own. One after another, they clattered to the floor until the chest was completely unbound.
For a moment, nothing else happened. The chest simply sat there, silent and still, as though nothing had changed.
After a pause of thought, Saeko took a deep breath, set her hands on the lid, and carefully lifted it open.
She leaned forward to look inside—
And in that instant, a swarm of black tendrils burst forth, wrapping themselves tightly around her body.
"What—what is this?! Aah!"
No matter how she struggled, the black tentacles refused to let go. Even when she slashed at them with her wooden sword, the attack had no effect—the blade was ripped from her hands and thrown to the ground.
Her clothes were eaten away, her body swallowed in writhing, pitch-black liquid.
Encased in darkness, Saeko's vision went black. Agonizing pain tore through her body, like thousands of needles piercing her skin, something crawling and twisting inside her veins.
The torment was unbearable. Her consciousness slipped, and she fainted.
(Author's Note: I dug up some info—when Venom bonds with a host for the first time, it causes excruciating pain. It's basically checking and syncing with the host's body so there's no rejection. This lets it copy abilities, and from then on, the host can use Venom's powers freely. Once that first sync is done, future bonds aren't nearly as painful since the data's already stored.)
The black liquid shifted and tightened against her skin, reshaping itself until it formed a sleek black suit.
"Venom… is back!"
The figure straightened up, stretching as if waking from a long nap. A month trapped in that iron coffin—he'd almost starved to death.
That damned system really screwed him over.
The moment he crossed into this world, he'd ended up locked inside that chest with no way out, unable to attach to a host, and very nearly perished. If not for the psychic power he'd managed to acquire, no one would have even known he was buried alive in that underground prison.
He flexed, savoring the feeling of freedom, then stopped suddenly and looked down at the chest.
"…Figures. This really is a fanservice world. The development here is something else."
He couldn't help but laugh softly. From the moment he bonded, he knew Saeko Busujima's body inside and out—every detail was imprinted in his mind more vividly than even she herself was aware of.
Venom could say without exaggeration that he knew her body better than she did.
After indulging in that thought for a moment, he strode forward, a black tendril shooting out from his back to retrieve the wooden sword from the ground.
Once outside the cellar, he strapped the sword across his back, the symbiote coating it in black liquid to hold it firmly in place.
Scanning his surroundings one last time, Venom crouched, then leapt high into the air, leaving the Busujima estate behind.
"....."