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

Chapter 11 - The Birth of the Demon Swordsman

(A/n): Warning, I guess? It's got a little gruesome near the end, at least in my opinion. Other than that... uh, enjoy the chapter?

Waking up with a pounding headache was not a pleasant feeling. U/n felt his entire head throbbing the second he reawoke. It hurt even to think, much less groan, and when his eyelids fluttered open, revealing his dark eyes, he didn't immediately recognize his surroundings because of how hazy the events before he fell unconscious were. Control over his body was lacking, so lying there with his pounding headache was all he could do, wishing he could do anything to ease the pain. Yet there was nothing and all he could do was slowly wake up from possibly the longest sleep he ever had because he had never been up as long as before falling unconscious.

The events of what happened, the boss fight with Azazel the Exiled, the Boss Fights, all the anger, hatred, and rage he felt, came rushing back.

U/n wondered how long he had been asleep because sleeping in a dungeon was possibly the most dangerous place to fall unconscious. It had been sheer luck Azazel hadn't respawned and attacked him when he was defenceless or more dangerous of the possibility of monsters spawning in the room right after Azazel had died. Yet the precautions needed to sleep out on the field hadn't been set up, which made U/n groan because he felt so stupid because of what happened. He should have been more aware and listened to his gut regarding rushing toward the Boss Fight with Azazel. Heading back to town and sleeping the night would have made things easier, even possibly gotten rid of the headache he was currently being assaulted by. It wasn't like hunger was a problem, so it had to be sleep deprivation.

Sliding his hand across the transparent floor, U/n pushed himself off the ground and felt everything spin. The slightest movement made his headache worse. He never had anything as excruciating as this before. The last time he had experienced a headache was when he was sick, which happened before the game, around a couple of months before the Beta Test. Violet had taken care of him religiously like the sickness would have taken his life. At the time, U/n didn't know why she worried as much as she did, but he would have felt a little worried if he felt a fraction of what he was now.

When he took a deep breath, U/n finally realized the floor was transparent, and the bird's eye view of the floor below made him stop momentarily. He didn't think the dungeon room was that low, but remembering the descent down the stairs made U/n think otherwise. He also realized what time it was because of the view he received, a darkened view of the floor below with spots of light from the towns where U/n was on the ceiling. A glimmering blob of light was in the middle of the floor, a distant glow from where U/n was, the main town of the floor in the center of the floor.

"D...Damn..." He groaned, tilting his body to the right and flopping onto his side.

U/n caught himself, struggling with keeping his weight up, and managed to maneuver into a sitting position on the floor. The blackness of the room was apparent, giving him a moment for the night vision of his Search Skill to activate, scanning the room now that there wasn't a problem to deal with. The damage done by the Boss Fight lingered, which caught his interest momentarily before he turned and saw the destroyed throne against the far wall. There, U/n saw something to the right of the throne from where he was sitting, a slanted wall pushed inches in compared to the others, which caught U/n's interest because he noticed the stairway he came down was gone.

The new way out of the dungeon would have taken U/n in a direction he didn't know where it would lead, especially since the other stairway would have led him to the dungeon he knew and mapped. If the stairway led to a different dungeon, U/n didn't know he would survive in his current state. Fighting a monster in his state might have taken a toll on him, making the idea of sleeping there until his headache became more appealing. Yet he made his decision before the thought finished.