Demon Swordsman: Remastered (Sword Art Online X Male Reader)

Chapter 7 - Red-Nosed Reindeer Part 1

The dark, dampness of a dungeon was full of nothing but monsters creeping in the darkness. The creepiest monsters dwelled in that darkness, such as the pair of beady red eyes staring through the darkness with a low snarl emanating from the shrouded figure. Each stride forward echoed through the dungeon's interior, loudly returning to the origin of the noise with a low hiss followed by a droplet of saliva splattering across the rocky ground. Its claws scraped against the ground, sending sparks of light outward and illuminating its shrouded figure momentarily, a creature on its four legs.

Then, without prompt, a bloodred spear of light pierced the darkness and punctured the shrouded figure with a roaring noise. The only thing close enough to describe the noise would be the sound of a jet engine roaring at full throttle, echoing loudly within the dungeon. The solid illumination of light revealed the features of the owner of the attack, revealing a dark, long, one-handed blade in their right hand. Even in the darkness combined with the little illumination provided by the bloodred spear of light, their owner's features were unveiled, a head of snowy white hair with dark hazel eyes piercing the darkness before fading away as the light faded, leaving the entire dungeon in darkness.

"Shit," They cursed, swiping their sword through the air before returning it to its sheath over their shoulder. "Another failure." He swiped his index and middle finger before him, prompting a menu to appear.

Navigating the darkness of the dungeon would have been difficult normally, but the player wondering through the dungeon had opened an ever-expanding map within the menu. Normally, a player's goal within a dungeon would be to explore and investigate the dark corners for loot, but the Clearers had already looted this specific dungeon, so the goal of loot was a secondary one for the player. Their priority was how deserted the dungeon had been for the last several hours because it was one of the weaker dungeons on the frontlines, which worked perfectly with what they had in mind.

Several floors ago, this specific player going by the name of U/n, had discovered a new skill, a Unique Skill, by the name of "Mark of Darkness." The name left the details of the skill rather vague and the description wasn't any help, so U/n was left testing the skill to figure out what it can and can't do. However, those tests weren't as successful as he would have hoped when he made the decision to go on the solo journey of learning how to utilize the skill properly. They were less than fruitful for several reasons.

One of the reasons why the attempts had been unsuccessful is what followed the activation of the skill. A chilling numbness spread through his body and gradually became colder the longer he called upon the darkness within himself. There was a pull inside him, trying to pull him deeper into the pit, but that mattered little compared to one of the more important reasons why the attempts weren't successful. If a monster got lucky and lobbed off any of his limbs, the pain of that usually would not have affected U/n because of the Pain Absorber built into the NerveGear. Only the Unique Skill deactivated that and made it ten times worse, so he felt all the pain.

U/n had no idea why this was the case, but he assumed it was because of how powerful the Unique Skill was. There had to be a downside to it. He had been able to do what most players—every player—would think impossible: fight and defeat a floor boss. If there weren't a drawback, he would have found that suspicious, but he wondered if the drawback were appropriate or not because he didn't think he would have to relive pain as painful as that in his entire life after living with Violet.

The first time he had experienced this pain, it was by accident. When he initially awakened the Unique Skill, everything was numb, so he didn't realize he was feeling pain back then until after, when he woke up after being unconscious for an hour. However, when he decided to test the skill, a plant monster got the better of him and slashed him across the arm, nearly sending him into a fetal position to process the pain. He hadn't because of the sole reasoning of dying if that had happened, so U/n pushed through and ended the plant monster before it could do anything else to him.