Dark: Fearless Pioneer (Dark LitRPG book 1) Read online

  And he would watch it get pumped to impossible new heights. Assuming nothing changed. If anything was going to change, it would have to be by some force other than Dark’s force of will. What could he do when he spent sixteen hours a day getting whipped, sliced, and jabbed, with the resulting wounds doused in salt and vinegar? Even a cursory list of Spider’s techniques would fill a dozen single-spaced pages. Double sided. An ingenious system of fetters held his body in place, and there was no way to escape them.

  His only possible act of aggression was an occasional spit attack to Spider’s face. What was the point? The torturer wasn’t even mad when Dark spit at him. He just let out a wicked chuckle.

  Outside, his situation would be hopeless. In the virtual world, though, free hands were not necessarily required. There were other indirect ways of affecting your environment. Chat systems, game skills, tech support, and most importantly, the Exit button. Pressing the Exit button would subject Dark to the most severe cleanse the synth industry had seen, but he would not hesitate to press it.

  Anything to escape this basement.

  Even if it meant the end of his life.

  Right now, though, he couldn’t even think. The measliest drop of mental effort is impossible when your skin is being flayed off or hot tongs are being drilled into your flesh. At the end of the day, Spider would leave Dark until morning came. The victim would be unable to sleep. His position was uncomfortable as it was, without all of the pain and suffering piled on top of it. And the wild train of thoughts crashing through his head. He suffered in half-consciousness, a shallow imitation of sleep, yet devoid of coherent thought and sense of time. None of his sluggish attempts at using the game’s features made any progress.

  He didn’t even get anything resembling a response. With his synth damaged, his capabilities were limited – it had no connection to the game interface, or a spotty one, at best.

  Kim – Mila’s father, that is – knew what he was talking about. He was going to destroy Dark’s mind. Already Dark felt like he was drowning, unable to concentrate on anything, his mind degrading rapidly. If that was due to the consequences of the illegal, potent injections and synth modifications that eased his insertion into the metaverse, it would have passed by now. Yet he still couldn’t think clearly.

  And things would only get worse and worse, until he was done for.

  Until he became a vegetable, just as Kim had promised.

  Everyone had their limits, and Dark was rapidly approaching his. During his rich fighting experience, he had grown accustomed to pain, but despite the cheap advertisements published by the organizers of his old fights, he had never experienced one hundred percent sensation. The synth would not allow it, and neither would the providers. Plus, the low-quality software that powered the underground arenas further reduced realism and sensation. The operators of the black market fights couldn’t afford serious developers. A team of them cost nine figures. If memory served, mega-worlds like X cost ten figures to build.

  Of course, if his synth was being repaired, he might begin seeing more than just progress notifications from the system. Other more useful functions might just come and give him his chance.

  But if so, would that happen before Dark lost his sanity?

  Chapter 5

  Race Power

  Total stat levels: 5

  Character level: 0

  Mastery level: 0

  Attention: You have not chosen a name in the required three-day period! The game interface is locked. To unlock the interface, select an in-game name for yourself.

  What the... Dark’s back arched in pain as a red-hot iron pressed against him. He failed to comprehend what he was seeing. Picking a decent name was hard enough. It was impossible while being tortured. Dark applied every last bit of mental energy he could to the task. Nothing.

  What had the message said about the interface?

  Dammit, Spider! Demon bastard. Stupid beast! Give me a second to figure out what the system wants from me!

  It wanted his name. Why? And what was the three-day period about? Wait... His inability to access the menu apparently had nothing to do with his synth being damaged.

  The bastards had created a character for Dark without a name.

  Then, they had held him unconscious here for 72 hours. Once the deadline hit, the game locked him out of some features. Any attempt to call up a menu or other function would prompt a demand for his name. And had he continued to be unable to see system messages, he would have been indefinitely powerless.

  Kim’s people had thought of everything. Almost everything.

  The torture was not strong enough at this moment to prevent Dark from doing this small thing. The game wanted a name. He would give it the only name that came to mind.

  Attention: You have selected a name. Game interface unlocked. Here’s some key information about your character!

  Name: Dark. You are short and dark-skinned and strike like a dagger from the shadows.

  Race: Ethrian One of the ancient races forgotten by the gods, with undecided values, trapped between light and darkness.

  Race Perk: +50% sensation. An Ethrian suffers like none other.

  Special Power: Avalanche of Feeling. Active skill. Activating this skill increases sensation by 100%. Magic energy cost: 50. Duration: 30 seconds. Cooldown: 1 hour.

  Despite the intolerable pain allowing him only flickers of conscious thought, Dark found a grin somewhere within himself. Kim had picked the perfect race for his ends. It was worthless. Its only purpose was pain and suffering. Nothing else in the world of X could experience such pain.

  What could he do now? Attempts to dig deeper into the menu failed to give him what he wanted. It seemed the Settings sub-menu with the Exit button he wanted so badly was completely gone. The chat system looked active, but with no option to contact tech support. Either that was impossible from this playing area, or he needed to know a tech support employee’s nickname in order to start a chat with him.

  Wait, what’s this? Another active skill: Create Resurrection Point. It cost half of current magic energy and took ten hours to cool down. So if a person were to die during the course of the game, he would revive at the set point. But a remote point couldn’t be set. All he could do was set his current location.

  Damn. He really did have nothing he could do but double his pain once an hour, for thirty seconds. As if he wasn’t already on the verge of life and death. The Spider had summoned the gloomy man in the crimson robe once again. Without a word, he would wave his staff and cast a healing spell on Dark and then begin the torture anew. Without this game ability, the Spider would have long ago tormented his victim to death.

  Wait. He had a thought. It came to him in a moment of clarity – or insanity.

  “Hmm, the coals have already gone cold!” Spider guffawed in his usual attempt at humor. “Don’t worry, my boy, we won’t freeze. I’ll go fetch some new ones! They’ll hurt a little, but don’t take it personally. It’s just my line of work, you know.”

  At the torturer’s mention of a fresh surge of pain, Dark finally grasped that elusive thought.

  Pain was what he needed.

  It was not only suffering – it was his way out, at last.

  What would double the pain do to him? Any of a number of things, from full loss of consciousness to his synth hanging. Maybe even death. After all, his outside body was tightly connected to his in-game body. The sensations were virtual, but they were indistinguishable from real ones. It was rumored that a top hypnotist could touch you with a pencil and just claim it was a smoldering cigar, and you’d be left with a burn mark on your skin. Something of the sort was about to happen.

  And Dark didn’t mind if it killed him. Better to die in a moment than to have his mind burned out of him, piece by piece.

  “Ah, the coals are ready!” Spider mocked, as Dark’s back exploded in unbearable pain.

  Well, Dark was about to make it unbearable, anyway.

  Voluntarily.
r />   Clenching his teeth, he somehow dragged his ability’s icon to his combat panel and mentally activated it.

  This immediately proved that “unbearable” had not been an exaggeration. The rush of agony was so fierce that Dark lost consciousness immediately.

  * * *

  Negative effect received: unconsciousness. You will become conscious again in 60 seconds.

  Dark was still alive.

  But he had to wait the sixty seconds now. The game would not allow him to do anything else. Sadly, the game did not allow its menu to be accessed while unconscious, or at least he didn’t know how to access the menu.

  A wet sponge ran over his lips, and he heard the Spider rebuke him in an uncharacteristically normal voice as he shook his head.

  “You gave me a scare there! I had to resort to some magic. We’ve healed you up just a bit. No need to frighten us like that; you’re in good hands here! I’ll give you an hour to rest and recover your strength. Then we can resume our little game! Remember not to take it personally. It’s my job, coming here day after day to spend time with you. At first you held up admirably, better than the others, but I guess we just broke you in. Knocked you right out. I was just trying to warm your back up a bit, you know. So don’t do that again, or I’ll get angry. And I may not be a very large man, but you won’t like me when I’m angry.”

  The door slammed behind the beast as he left. At last Dark was alone. But his situation had hardly improved. Still he sat in the same chair-table hybrid, his arms, legs, waist, and neck bound in steel fetters and chains. His only skill had just been used, and there was no way he could remove his shackles.

  He was helpless.

  There were a few things, though. By doubling his pain sensitivity and nearly killing himself, he had earned some medical treatment and a breather. It would be brief, but worth it.

  Dark had at last forced the Spider to play by his rules. He had interrupted the torturer’s plan.

  Rather than breaking on the system, he had bent it a little.

  Of course, the bend was so insignificant that no one would even notice it. But it was better than nothing, right?

  In one hour, Dark would pull the same trick again. That would earn him another breather.

  Either that, or fry his brains.

  Chapter 6

  Technical Issues

  Total stat levels: 5

  Character level: 0

  Mastery level: 0

  “You’re letting me down, my boy. Enough of this fainting, or Mr. Kim will be quite unhappy. And so will I. An unhappy Mr. Kim is not something you want to see. A worse sight than an angry spider, let me tell you. Look, you get one half hour to recover your spirits. But then we’ll have some hard work to do to make up for lost time. No answer, eh? I didn’t pull your tongue out this time, you know. How about I bring you a beer? No? Are you more of an ale person? I’m feeling kind today, you see – I’m worried about you. Since you don’t feel like answering, I think we’ll make that less than a half hour. After all, you’ll get lonely otherwise, won’t you? So don’t worry, I’ll be back, and with some fresh coals!”

  The door closed behind the torturer for the sixth time in a row. Half a dozen times, now, Dark had activated his only ability. How he was still alive was beyond him. He was exhausted, but holding on to life and sanity both. Of course, perhaps each spike of pain was chipping away at his brain. Would he even know if it was? The pain was far too much even for a seasoned virtual fighter. If pieces of him were dying, eventually he would collapse.

  He would die in the real world.

  Despite all of this torture, I still don’t want to die... The mage and his healing staff not only treated his wounds but also removed a significant amount of the pain. Dark almost felt good. And when he felt good, he felt like delaying his own death as much as he could.

  He was so young, after all. He had experienced so little of life. Perhaps less of real life than virtual life. Now, he had to kill himself because of this maniac’s false accusations.

  Dark wouldn’t wish this on his worst enemy.

  Of course, as soon as the Spider was back, Dark’s wish to survive would evaporate. Simply by walking in the door, Spider gave him an inexorable desire to cut his own throat.

  Then the stale air, saturated with the smells of burnt flesh, sweat, and coal, began to move. There was no time to wonder, no time to be surprised: In an instant, a huge column of blinding light shot up from the floor to the ceiling. Out of it stepped a tall, ideally muscled man with a cherub’s visage and angelic garb clinging to him like a second skin.

  The stranger stared impassively into Dark’s eyes and spoke with absolute monotony. “Greetings, Dark. I am an in-game emergency bot. You can call me Emergency Bot 25, or simply Emergency Bot. My deepest apologies for interrupting your gameplay experience. Your game experience has deviated significantly from game norms. For eleven days, you have not changed your coordinates. You have been online for an unacceptably long time. In addition, your level of sensation is unacceptably high. The system has recorded six peaks of sensation which have broken all in-game records. Are you satisfied with your game experience, Dark?”

  “Do I look satisfied?”

  “I do not understand. Please answer the question directly.”

  “No, I am not satisfied.”

  “What is wrong?”

  “You wouldn’t understand. I need a human.”

  “Try to express your problem in terms I will understand. What is your complaint?”

  “Can’t you see I’m in real trouble? Can I speak to a tech support person?”

  “I can resolve any problem related to ordinary gameplay without human intervention. What is the problem? Are you stuck in a buggy location?”

  “Can’t you already see I’m stuck? Connect me to a real person. Not a bot, a human. I need tech support. Badly.”

  “I’m sorry, but direct in-game tech support is not available at your characters level. The human tech support team only acts directly in the world of X in critical situations. However, you can exit the game and file a bug report. Your report will be evaluated as quickly as possible, and any appropriate action will be taken regarding your account once a decision has been made.”

  “I can’t exit the game.”

  “Use the Exit button.”

  “It doesn’t work here,” Dark lied, realizing that he could not let this bot leave under any circumstance.

  This stupid piece of code had to help him somehow here and now, not direct him to file a report on the outside.

  “The Exit button is active in all locations,” the bot insisted. “It is an integral part of the game interface and is located in the Main Menu.”

  “There’s something wrong with it here,” Dark pushed in desperation. “Once I exit the game, I will describe the bug in detail in a bug report. But in order to exit the game, I have to somehow exit this location first. Otherwise, I will be forced stay here. And I will continue to suffer. Do you know what will happen if the pain kills me? You will all be in serious trouble. That will have permanent negative consequences for X’s reputation. So please move me out of this location and I will file a bug report.”

  The bot spoke after five seconds of silence. “There is a precedent for this situation from the game alpha. An emergency procedure was decided upon for a case like yours. 1x unique consumable Scroll of Random Teleport for your race has been placed in your inventory. It cannot be discarded or sold, and it will disappear in one hour if you do not use it. To use it, you can open it with your hands. Or, you can activate it directly from your inventory. After use, you will find yourself in a random location matching your race. Once again, my deepest apologies for interfering with your gameplay experience.”

  The bot turned and stepped back into the column of light, and both rapidly disappeared into the ceiling.

  Dark grinned wildly and opened his inventory, but he did not yet activate the scroll.

  He would wait for the Spider to return.r />
  * * *

  “I hope you didn’t miss me much,” the Spider mocked.

  “You know, you won’t believe this, but I really did miss you.”

  “I’m having trouble believing that. No one really misses me. Oh wait! Could it be? My first real case of Stockholm Syndrome? Or... are you falling for me, you little pervert?”

  “No, Spider, I’m not gay.”

  “You know what, I’ll take that as a challenge. I give it five minutes before you’re screaming that you love me.”

  “You’ll lose that bet. I can guarantee it. Find something more interesting.”

  “Oh? Looks like that bit of rest did you a lot of good. You haven’t talked this much for a long time. So I’ll start with your tongue. I miss the silence. You won’t mind, will you?”

  “You’re not starting anywhere, Spider. I could barely restrain myself while I waited for your return. You know why?”

  “Because you didn’t have a choice. Waiting is all you can do, buddy. So you waited.”

  “You’re wrong. I do have a choice. I just had something to tell you first.”

  “Well, let’s hear it before I rip your tongue out. But I’d better laugh, or I’m ripping other things off, too.”

  “I’ll find you. Not here. Outside. No matter where you are, some day you will realize I’m behind you. You’ll turn, and the last thing you see will be me, smiling down at you.”