Shred of Sin

Rin pinned his sword into the undead's neck, forcing out every bit of his mana. The monster lurched its huge maw, coming to bite him off, but Rin kept his sword tied against its neck, limiting its movement to the best of his abilities.

He growled, twisting the sword left and right as awful reeking pus and blood oozed out of the wound. The sword came out from the other side, piercing through as the undead lost power in its upper body.

Rin's stomach convulsed at the awful reek, and then the monster threw him off, lurching its foot upwards. Rin's heavy body barely moved a metre, but he lost his sword. It was still stuck in the monster's neck.

Rin rolled up to sit upright, feeling the fatigue. The monster wasn't dead even though disgusting blood and pus came all over its neck, barely healing anything.

It screeched at Rin, rambling every bit of its wrath. Rin was ready to roll off on its way, but the monster couldn't manage to make another move. It did rush at Rin, but its body fell before it could do any more damage.

[Congratulations! You have defeated a Shred (Metamorphing).]

[You have cleansed a Shred of Taint, a threat to the universe. You have received 1000 Avalon credits.]

Rin had no mind to read the notification. He simply rolled on the ground before vomiting on the lush grass. Thankfully, he had eaten nothing heavy in the game, or it would have been even more difficult for him.

Being done with the vomiting, Rin rolled half a dozen times away from all the disgusting blood and vomit to lie down under the watchful eyes of the stranger.

"I'm alive," Rin growled out, spreading his back wide on the grass. Rin was still breathless, his muscle spasmed, body ached, but Rin felt more alive than most times.

"Aren't you going to loot the undead, Brother?" the stranger dude asked.

Rin didn't bother to answer the stranger as he heaved restlessly on the ground. He found the stranger not bothering to loot the corpse at all. He similarly sat down, a good distance away from the reeking undead.

"You know, most people would leap at looting a Shred like that even if their contribution was barely anything," the stranger dude said.

"Well, most people are dumbasses," Rin remarked. He was included in those dumbasses as well. Or why would he bother listening to the stranger when he could run away from the undead?

"Since you played a greater hand at defeating the Shred," the stranger said, "you deserved to loot the monster."

Rin snorted. "I ain't going nowhere near that disgusting bastard."

"Even if it leaves behind something very useful?"

Rin didn't bother to reply. He barely had a single digit of mana. This battle took everything out of him and more. He had to use the ring for healing once and then absorbed more gems to power up.

This would have been nothing serious in any normal VR game, however, this immersive realism forced Rin to consider if he should log out again.

Well, his clothes were in rags, mostly done by the wolves, with a large amount of bloodstains on his body. There was no shortage of bruises and injuries on his body as well. As for scars, Rin never was short of those.

"Oh brother, what are you thinking so dully?" the stranger said, moving closer to him.

"I'm thinking of poking you with a sword." Rin shot him a glare, recalling this troublemaker was behind everything.

"You're good at jokes, brother."

"I swear," Rin declared, "if you call me brother one more time, I'll show you whether or not I'm joking."

The stranger looked at his face carefully and then showed his hand in yield. A silence followed between the two as the stranger finally decided to loot the undead.

"I'm looting the undead," the stranger asked, just to be clear. "At least it would relieve us from the stench. Don't worry, you can choose the rewards first."

Rin was fine with that, as he simply wanted to lie down and rest for the time being.

The stranger was lanky, half a head taller than Rin, with fine black hair. A rather handsome face with high cheeks that seemed to only start growing facial hair. He wasn't bony like Rin, either. Under those clothes, he was hiding well-built muscles, more on the athletic type than the brute muscular type, though.

In simpler words, he was in far better shape than Rin. Not only did he manage to keep himself alive under the chase of a pack of wolves, but this fellow was also still in shape to fight again.

Well, he's injured with claw marks on his arms and shoulder, and he couldn't deal with the pack alone, which was why he pulled Rin into this mess in the first place.

The stranger looted the huge dead monster as black tendrils of smoke came out, unlike most times when the corpse turned into white mist. It took several seconds for the smoke to clear out and when it did, there were dozens of gems of different colours left on the ground.

"We got four kinds of evolution gems," the stranger said as he picked them apart. "The most common Physique enhancing gems, a handful of the most important Spirit enhancing gems, Oh Agility, and Recovery, too. And this last thing is a Stain of Sin."

"Stain of Sin?" Rin repeated. "Cool name."

"Brother, this is one of the most ominous things in the universe," the guy intoned sharply.

Rin tilted his head to consider the black marble in the stranger's hand. It hardly seemed anything apart from a marble in his eyes. Even the evolution gems, which were more common, glittered in their colour—the Physique Enhancing ones in red, Green for Spirit, orange and yellow for Agility and Recovery, respectively.

However, this Stain of Sin was an all-black gem.

Rin scrutinised it for a time and finally noticed the ominous thing about it.

Light doesn't seem to reflect on the gem all that much.