Sword Art Online: Phantom Reaper || SAO OC

42 - Backup

December 27th 2025 - 4:24pm

Opening his eyes and adjusting to the bright light piercing through his eyes, Niko found himself lying face-up staring at a bright blue sky. His body was stiff as nails, yet he felt no sensation of pain. Unable to move, he could do nothing more than close his eyes and take a few deep breaths. He could barely feel the sensation of sunlight beaming on his skin or the nearly perfectly rendered grass he laid on.

Right now he wasn't Niko, the boy laying in a hospital bed recovering from a brutal attack on Christmas eve. He wasn't the boy just barely saved by his cruel older cousin for his own benefit. He was Nyx.

He was a high-level player grinding alone in a field on the 20th floor of New Aincrad. He just defeated a mob of enemies and when he could move again he sat up and began to scroll through his menu, scanning through all of his stats. He looked at his skill list, feeling disappointed that one of his skills - Marksmanship - was still too low to get a better bow.

In his attempt to forget about his real-world condition he had been trying to grind and level up his Marksmanship skill but he wasn't good with long-range encounters. He preferred to be up close and personal, but with a bow and arrow, he didn't have that luxury.

Nyx didn't care much about the skill at first, but something inside of him couldn't accept that there was a skill he couldn't use at all.

He realized that he was low on items and sat for a moment while considering going back to town to stock up. He eventually got up and activated his wings and prepared to fly off but stopped when he realized a large number of kobold enemies spawned in front of a cave behind him. He was out of range, so the enemies didn't realize he was there so they didn't move to attack him.

He equipped his longbow and a dagger, then turned around. He scanned the enemies and realized that over twenty of them had spawned in.

Nyx was easily outnumbered and usually wouldn't try taking on so many on his own. Kobold enemies were small, and on their own, they're not a threat but fighting too many at once could lead to a player becoming overwhelmed, but this time he decided to take the chance and fight. He wasn't in the mood to do anything else in ALO, wasn't up for the scent of gunpowder and gun oil in GGO, and didn't feel like logging off and sitting alone in his hospital room.

Nyx drew three arrows and tried to activate the skill <<Explode Arrow>> which was the only longbow skill he was comfortable with. It would power up the arrows and caused them to explode when making contact with the enemy.

In an open field he knew that the second he fired they would all rush him. Nyx took a breath and fired the three arrows, taking down two of them and damaging just about every other enemy. With that they all focused and charged straight at him.

Nyx launched himself at the mob of enemies firing another <<Explode Arrow>> while he closed the gap between them. One of the Kobolds tried to strike Nyx down with a one-handed axe but Nyx raised his bow to block the attack.

He used the martial art skill <<Embracer>> taking the kobold down in that one shot. He quickly looked back and saw another kobold charge at him with its axe but this time he grabbed the axe out of its hands and kicked the kobold back, knocking two others back.

He spun around and struck another kobold down with the axe but before he could strike him down again another kobold jumped onto his back. It hit him two times but before it could hit him a third time, Nyx activated his wings, jumped up, and reached for the kobold behind him. He grabbed it and pulled it off his back but before he could do anything else the kobold slashed at his tail. Caught off guard by the discomfort he let go of the kobold and let him fall into the group of eleven others.